I turned slowly away from where Wagner had disappeared over the side of the wall and faced my captors, the Zards. Chief among them was the King, he being a foot or two taller than the others, with a graceful and powerful pose that struck awe into the eyes of the beholder with its innate command and dignity, both of which flowed from it as naturally as water from a well. There were about twenty guards in the squadron that protected the King, but it was not so much from the terror of them that the Canitaurs fled, nor was it because of the guards that patrolled the walls and were sure to join any fray attempted, it was instead an apparent fear of the King, and rightly so, for his demeanor was fierce and sophisticated, as if he were not just a warrior nor solely a scholar, but a mixture of the two that gave him an aura that inspired fear, some unseen presence that filled the air around him and sent his neighbors into a reverencing awe reminiscent of a lover’s sacred euphoria, intangible yet undeniable.
As I turned to him, he smiled and greeted me softly and pleasantly, in such a way that seemed contrary to his nature. Instead of being terrible and glorious like the crash of thunder or the din of waves, his voice was melodious, subtly so, like a soft summer rain affecting the dreams of a slumbering child as it falls gently on his face. There was a rhythm that ran through it, like poetry, yet not like average poetry, where the rhythm is forced and the lines deformed to its ungainly warble, but like heavenly poetry, where the rhythm is beyond the conscious and into the subconscious, where it inspires a feeling of quaint remembrance of itself, as if it were there and not there at the same time. And while it was soft and pleasant, it was not feminine, for it was a strong baritone, reinforced by its own superiority and strengthened by its wit and sobriety.
“Greetings, o’ chosen one,†he said to me, “I see that you have arrived safely.â€
“Yes, quite soundly,†I replied, a little taken aback on two fronts: firstly that he was not angry or indignant that I had attempted to destroy his kingdom and take his life in the process, and secondly that he seemed to expect me, as if I were his midday tea partner.
“I am glad, for I would wish you no harm, though your Canitaurian friends obviously felt no such concern. But just as well, for they always were unpredictable. I’m sorry that there is no one here at the moment, or we should have a great welcoming parade for our newly arrived kinsman redeemer, but they are off at the lake, inspecting the fire I suppose. I must admit it caught me off guard for a moment or two, and at first I was actually quite surprised. I soon remembered, though, that our friends the Canitaurs would have gotten some notions in their heads of a battle, at your arrival. It must be a grand sight in any case, and not one to miss.â€
I gave him a strange look, for I was a bit confused myself at the attitude he donned towards me, very friendly, as was Wagner, as I recalled, though it seemed as contrary to his nature as it did to the King’s. He saw the expression of my eyes, and seemed to read right through my thoughts and see my apprehension of punishment, for he beckoned to his guards to leave us alone. They moved quickly and uniformly, a well-trained unit, and positioned themselves in a line formation along the street. The King and I then strolled down their midst, they walking along with us at a distance of a few yards, which was all that the closely built buildings would permit. In a moment or two we reached the Temple of Time, which was on the far side of a large square plaza that opened up between it, the palace, and the government center. Once we reached it, he led me inside and the guards took up post around its outside.
“You need not fear,†he told me when we were alone, “You are among friends here. You see, the Canitaurs were not the only ones waiting for a kinsman redeemer, the Zards were as well. That day that you were seen going into the Canitaur’s outpost was a big disappointment for us, I had almost begun to think that you were beyond our reach. I am sure you know all about the conflict between us, and the circumstances of your time that brought its beginning about?â€
“Yes, I do,†I responded as we walked through the great entry hall of the temple, lined with bookshelves and a rich red carpeting. He was silent for another moment as we crossed into another room that led to a chamber with a long table in its center and a great many statues and works of art scattered throughout its whole. There was an altar at the far end, built into a giant statue of a White Eagle that graced the entire wall, it holding the altar in its giant claws.
He saw me look at it and told me, “This is the Hall of Time, and that is the altar to Temis, the God of Time. It is a very sacred place, to both us and the Canitaurs, for it was built by Temis himself, before the race of man inhabited the earth. By the time any men came to live on Daem, it had been buried by the dirt and debris of thousands of years, but when the Great War took place, the shock uncovered it and revealed it to men, a sort of revelation that came only as it was needed the most. Daem’s war started over the control of it, and to a point still is. To a certain extent is has helped us greatly, since the Canitaurs are afraid to lay siege to us in the regular fashion, for fear that it will be laid to ruin, and then our fate sealed in flesh and bone as well as earth and stone. But come, there is something I want to show you,†he told me.
With that he started over to a door in the wall adjacent to the entrance, which, as there were only two doors, was the only other exit. It led to a long, winding stair that went up to the top of the tower that I had seen from below. We walked up it in silence, more from awe of its magnificent construction on my part than fatigue in climbing its steep stairs, which wound on and on almost indefinitely. There were no windows in the tower, and only a few paintings to liven up the sparsely decorated walls, yet they needed no adornments, for they were beautifully constructed from a strange stone that split and colored in a marvelous twisting pattern.
At last we came to the top. It was much like it had appeared to be from below, for it was a large glass sphere that sat on the tower, like the dome on top of a light pole. It was divided in two, and the stairs went right through the bottom half and opened into a circular foyer that then had a small flight of stairs running up to the main room. There were little closets and such in the empty spaces on the bottom floor. The upper room was a good thirty feet in diameter, and the walls and ceiling were all made of glass, very sturdy and insulating, yet completely transparent. On the floor was an odd carpet that was smooth and thin, like a silk or fine linen, yet very strong. There was a rounded table on the side of the entrance hole opposite the stairs, and a curved couch that sat against the wall behind it, cut perfectly to its circular outline. Two cushioned chairs sat at the table and a small end table leaned up against the couch, on top of which there was a medium sized spyglass, that is, a telescope.
The sun was just coming up and shining its golden hues on the surrounding lands, which were beginning to darken as the fires of Lake Umquam Renatusum died down to a faint glow in the center of the forests of the near-north. It was the first time that I had gotten a bird’s eye view of Daem, and I was amazed at its beauty. The plains stretched on one side of Nunami like a broad field of gold in the morning light, its dew drizzled grasses waving in a solemn and dignified manner to and fro like the constant beating of the earth’s heart, and when looked upon abstractly it moved as if one great beast of benevolence, holding itself in unison as it chorused back the silent tones of life. Its edges draped down to the ocean like a curtain of woven sunlight on the eastern and southern sides of the island of Daem, and on the western side of Nunami the great forest came up right to its edge. There was a little of the forest between the ocean and the city on that side, while to the north there was a great stretch of trees, all the way until the ocean again came into sight in the far, far north. On the ground the trees of Daem seemed like mighty towers and battlements of nature, and on the treeway one felt suspended in air hundreds of feet above the ground on a cloud of green and growing foliage, but from afar and above they were revealed in their true splendor, shooting up from the earth as if they were the arms of the ground itself, grasping huge clusters of leaves and branches far above in their tightened fists. Some way into the forest, the ground sprang up into mountains that were as fierce and behemoth as the trees that clothed them. They were terrible to the eye and mind, as evidences of the power that exists outside of oneself.
The city of Nunami was also revealed to me for the first time in depth. As I have said, it was surrounded by a thick, tall wall made of stones and precious jewels, with four gates, one at the furthest extreme in each direction. It was a circular city, made mostly of the same materials as the wall and temple, which were a plain, silvery stone; a dark rock with inherent patterns; a mixture of cobblestone and a colorful compositor rock; and a vast array of metals, everything from brass to silver to platinum. Made in an ancient style, the buildings were tall, the average being what was equivalent to at least a dozen or two stories in the pre-desolation times, and they were close together, built along roads paved with cobblestone and lined with trees whose girth, though not as monstrous as those in the wild, was still great. There were farm fields and vineyards and orchards and meadows for grazing animals all within the city walls, and not just congregated around the outside, for there were buildings all around the wall’s perimeter, but scattered among the other buildings in a natural and pleasing way. In the southern part there was a lake that was of fair size, and a fleet of fishing boats anchored at its shore showed that it did its part to contribute to the city’s well-being. Several of the trees throughout the city were especially conspicuous in their grandeur, for they rose hundreds of feet from the ground and had great waterfalls flowing down from their tops, as if they were crying great torrents of tears down from their aged faces, though if in sadness or joy, I couldn’t tell.
To the east there was land visible from the height at which I found myself, though in the distance it became hazy and I could not make out its distinct features. It was evidentially corrupted, however, for it had an uneasy look about it, as did the ocean, which was a faint, pale shadow of the rich blue it was in my childhood days. The sky as well was tainted, and it looked to be filled with the accumulated atrocities of countless generations. The clouds were thick and bluish, and the spherical mural of the sky itself had been greatly dried, cracked, and crumbled since my time, for it bore the marks of pain, the marks of the labor pains of the earth’s last gestating doom. And well they should, I thought, for in the years since my natural life it had seen much suffering and much destruction.
The King broke the silence, saying, “Lovely, isn’t it, Jehu? And it is all yours for the taking.â€
“What do you mean,†I asked him.
“Exactly what I said, the whole world is yours, if you want it.â€
“But how?â€
“All you have to do is join us, the Futurists, and we will reward you with all the power and glory that you can imagine.â€
At that I sobered up and replied, “But what of Onan, of my quest to stop the doom of humanity from materializing in this final juncture. He is the one who sent me, and he is the Lord of the Past, whom the Canitaurs follow. I am his agent, why would I turn from him to serve mere mortals?â€
He laughed a slight, sarcastic laugh, “Tell me, Jehu, to whom did he send you, your ancestors or your offspring?â€
“To my ancestors,†I said slowly, “Though the Canitaurs seemed to imply that my time was long ago. To be candid, I do not understand.â€
“Of course you do not understand, and how could you, when no one has told you? You see, Jehu, the question of time is not so linear as you would think. You know full well that the conflict between the Zards and Canitaurs is over how to address the renewing of the earth: they would send you, our kinsman redeemer, back into time to prevent the nuclear wars, while we would send you to the future to bring back its completion. They hold to traditions as if they were the foundation of life, while our people have no traditions in the traditional sense, if I may use that oxymoronic phrase, but we look to what will come instead of what has passed. History is unimportant to the present, Jehu, because we have advanced to the point that we do not make the same mistakes as our ancestors. In the past, they waged war needlessly and did so in the name of humanitarian deeds. But today, we are advanced enough that we use peaceful and just means to reach our ends. In your day there were many absurd beliefs, for example the so-called ‘fats’ that were so vehemently avoided, are actually quite healthy, while on the other hand, protectionism and socialism are quite absurd ideas, and yet they were held dear. But today we have no such presuppositions, today we understand the world and know justice where your society knew only its shadows. We do not need to be bound by the mistakes of yesterday, for we have the enlightenment of today, and while the Canitaurs cling to the old time’s ways, we have progressed to the point where we have no need of such traditions.â€
He continued, “It may seem to you foolish to follow Zimri instead of Onan, because Onan’s realm has already been established and grows greater everyday, while Zimri’s doesn’t exist and never will, but you miss a very important point in the understanding of these matters. For, as you probably know, time and matter are the foundations of physical existence, and while the two components are independent, they are also parallel. Matter is always revolving, from its simplest form in the atom to its greatest in the universe, everything is revolving and rotating. So is time. Imagine time as a galaxy, revolving continually around the black hole at its center, that is, an enigma that is actually devoid of all matter. Time is revolving around a great enigma as well, which is devoid of time, that enigma being eternity. Eternity is not a place where there is infinite time, but rather a place where there is simply no time, it is the counter-part in the temporal realm of a black hole in the material realm. And just as a galaxy in the material realm revolves around the black hole at its center, in the temporal realm, the flow of time itself revolves around eternity. That means that time repeats itself over and over again, just as on earth a year is the amount of time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun once, in the temporal realm, an age is the amount of time that it takes the time continuum to revolve once around eternity. Just as every year the climate on the earth is similar, every particular day having its usual temperature and weather, and every general period having the same seasons, so is time. While every age is completely new and original, they all follow the same pattern, and through every age the same general events happen, though a few of the small details change from one time to the next.
“So you see, it is true that Onan sent you to both the past and the future of your original time. The Pastites would say that you were sent forward in time, because you existed in our past, while the Futurists would say that you were sent backwards in time because you existed in our future. While this would seem an unimportant question, it is not, for we have to choose one or the other. You, the kinsman redeemer have to choose one or the other. That is why you were sent, you have to decide. Our fate must be decided by a mortal because the gods have vowed to never interfere directly in our ways again. You must decide, Jehu, for you hold the fate of humanity in your hands: in all the other ages before us, the wrong decision was made, and every time some great calamity came that somehow threw the earth into a great ice age that destroyed all life for many millenniums. We know that the wrong decision was made, but we cannot tell what it was that was done. Tell me Jehu, will you join the Futurists? Surely you can see that the Pastites are just that, stuck in the past, with their obsession with traditions and legends. They are of the past, but we are of the future, we are the progressive ones. Dear Jehu, choose the future, and when the earth is spared from the great impending doom, we will set you up as ruler of the world to show our gratitude. Will you join us, friend?†he asked me with the most entreating eyes, though of somewhat doubtful sincerity.
There was a deathly silence that followed, for I was thinking long and hard about what I should do, until at last I spoke, “Your majesty, I am afraid that I will have to turn you down and remain with the Pastites. Onan sent me, and it is Onan whom I shall follow.â€
The King shook his head and sighed dejectedly, for a moment he looked disheartened and crestfallen, but then he again resumed his former prideful pose and said to me, less humbly and entreating than before, “Very well, I was afraid that you would do that. I have no choice now but to keep you here indefinitely as a prisoner, until such time as you realize the error of your ways and repent. It may seem improper to refuse the decision of the kinsman redeemer, but I must, for I will not allow my people to be destroyed by your ignorance.â€
With that he turned and walked quickly down the stairs to the door, turning to me just as he reached it and adding with an almost spiteful intonation, “But then again, what clarity of mind can be expected from someone from the unenlightened past.†He then left the room, closing the door with a powerful thud, after which I heard a small metallic click and his strong, commanding footsteps fading down the long stairway. As soon as the sound had died away and he was no more to be heard, I ran down to the door and tried to open it, but to no avail, for it was locked. There was no way to escape: I was a prisoner of the Zards.
The light of the newborn sun rose that instant far enough above the horizon to shine directly into the tower’s upper dome-like room, and I was awe struck by the texture that the lights created on the glass of the walls, for when it shone through at just the right height, a previously invisible picture came to view. It was of a towering clipper ship with sails that stretched across their masts like skin over the bones of a pleasantly plump fellow, the wind billowing them about at a leisurely rate. Waves broke gently upon the ship’s side as the crew rested peacefully on the various cables and nets, all except for the one-legged captain who was busy looking at the map and accompanying charts. It was a quaint and beautiful scene, though it soon passed away as the sun moved upwards in the sky, and I wouldn’t have mentioned it, except that as it disappeared, I found myself looking at where it had been, but instead of the ship, I saw directly through the glass the inhabitants of Nunami arising and beginning their daily business, a scene which I might have missed since I was previously wholly absorbed by the picturesqueness of the sky.
Usually the Zards would arise before dawn and be about their business, but because of the great flames of the night before, they had no doubt had trouble sleeping, and therefore slept later than usual when they finally did fall into the lands beyond consciousness. They hustled and bustled about the streets of Nunami, each doing their own business, and there was much business to be done in a city in which all provisions are provided internally, with no trade or commerce outside whatsoever. There were merchants and stores still, yet they were not traders but producers, each making their own wares as they sold ones they had already made. Butchers sat in their shops with their blood-stained aprons already donned, cobblers and tailors were busy with the day’s repairs and new creations, the milkmen paraded the streets slowly and methodically, somehow getting their products to the citizens before 8 AM. The farmers and herdsmen were also at work in the fields that were spread throughout the city, plowing and sowing, and being joined by those who had just finished distributing the milk.
All was commonplace and normal, I thought, and I was surprised, for the Zards were not at all martially minded, a great contrast to their Canitaurian brethren. Of course, I had never actually met any of the Canitaurian commoners. It seems to me that the only ones who really are martially minded are the leaders and politicians, everyone else seems to mind their own business, and sometimes I wonder if there would even be any wars if there weren’t any governments with the power to wage one. There was a group of Zards by the government center, which was close to my involuntary quarters, and they were leaning over an opening in the aqueduct that ran down into the lake in the southern section of the city, branching off from there into all the various sectors. They were dumping a barrel of a fine, white powder into the water that was running down into the lake, and after the first had been poured in, they added another and another until they had put a good five barrels into the water source. Once they had finished, they took the empty barrels to a large cage that was down the road a bit, inside of a small grove of trees and shrubs. Inside the cage was a multitude of little beetles that crawled around every which way and were evidentially feasting on a large chunk of glowing material. For a moment I was surprised, and wondered what it was they were doing, but then it hit me: they were the delcator beetles that Bernibus had told me of earlier, the ones that absorbed the radioactive material and stabilized it. As I learned later, they had two good uses, one was that they consumed the unstable materials and neutralized them, but the other was that their droppings, when mixed into the water supply, also gave all that consumed them a greater tolerance for nuclear material. It was almost ironic that their whole way of life was dependent on the feces of another life form, but I will refrain from turning it into a metaphor.
The female Zards wore a black headpiece that mostly covered their faces, and at first I found it strange that for all his talk of progress, the King’s people still oppressed their women, perhaps there wasn’t as much progress as he had boasted, or, more likely, he was unaware that there was no such thing as progress, just different manifestations of oppression. History repeats itself, they say, and indeed it does, both literally and figuratively.
There suddenly arose a great commotion in the square between the Temple and the palace, and as I looked, I was surprised to see that there was a large crowd gathered. In the middle of the square there were two groups of ten Zards facing each other, with a single Zard in between them, and around the outside of the plaza area stood a hundred or so spectators, apparently watching those in the middle. A moment after I started watching, the solitary Zard, the referee as I found out, walked to the edge, and each of the groups walked to one of the opposing sides and then turned about to face the other. The referee let out a loud yell and in a flash, the two teams ran at each other headlong, until converging somewhere in the center of the field. As they met they dived upon one another and pushed and shoved until the left team had isolated one of the right’s players, who was the only one on his team wearing an orange jersey. They dived on him and jumped until the whole field was piled high with them, and then they slowly began to disembark. Once all of the opposing team’s players were off of the orange shirted Zard, all was silent and still as the referee held his hand aloft and began counting with his fingers. Everyone held their breathe and stood tensely by as they watched. Just before the referee’s tenth and final finger was counted, the orange shirted player rose from the ground, amidst the screams of joy from his team and about half of the crowd, apparently their fans. The two teams then returned to their respective sides, and again the referee yelled loudly, signaling them to rush at each other once more, and more of the same ensued, this time it being the other team’s orange shirted player to get pounced on. Once again there was a high pile on top of him, and once again, as they crawled off and he was exposed, the referee began to count. Except that this time the orange shirted one never got up. The other team cheered again and so did the other half of the crowd. The referee went to a pole on the sidelines and put up the number ‘1’ on it while a few bystanders picked the Zard up and carried him off the field. They continued to play in this fashion for awhile, going until one team or the other had no longer any players to be jumped upon, but I was too disgusted at their violent nature to watch, and instead walked over to the end table and picked up the telescope, taking back as I did my thoughts about the innocence and gentleness of the common folk.
With the telescope in hand I went over to the eastern side of the room and began to closely inspect the savanna in an attempt to get a bird’s eye view of the point of my entrance in Daem. It looked rather the same from above as it did from below, though the smells and sounds were missing, and I found that it was rather bland once the initial excitement, surprise, and respect of its novelty had worn off. Indeed, it was quite too dull for me, even in my state of boredom as a prisoner, though I suppose that that isn’t a proper description of my feelings, for I wasn’t free from excitement or intriguing events, but rather, I was in the middle of a campaign of new and anticipated things, but simply unable to participate. Stuck in a room 800 feet from the ground with walls of glass that allowed observation of the whole island of Daem, which I assumed to be the only civilization in the world, while great events unfolded around me, of which I was supposed to be the primary actor, was very disconcerting, though I find in retrospect that fate worked so mysteriously in my situation that it is quite puzzling to think about, meaning, of course, my relationship with the doom of humanity as preventer and provoker, as savior and condemner.
My writing of this manuscript may be considered quite a big cheat, as it details my direct involvement with Onan, the Lord of the Past, and the general circumstances of the end of life on earth, for the current age at least, but still I am allowed to write it. Onan told me just a few moments ago that I could write it and tell all that I want, to which I was taken aback. When I asked why he would allow me to break the law of the council of the gods, he replied that there was no rule against a human agent from detailing his involvement in the actions of the divines. It was allowed, he told me, because it would never make a mite of a difference, for even if it were able to survive the bitter ice ages and all the evolutionary periods in this TAB (Temporal Anomaly Box, which I will explain later, since I get ahead of myself and have not told of them yet), and even if it is found by humans, and even if they are capable of understanding the text contained within it, even then they will take no gain from it. I was again taken aback when he said this, for though I know humans to be stubborn and foolish, in general, I would think that they would at least mind the warning when the conditions of its completion came to pass. But he dissuaded me, telling me that my coevals of the next age would no doubt take it as a novel.
At this I took your defense quite personally upon myself, and demanded in as not so humble a tone as would be thought proper, though as I am about to die within the next day or two, I have to admit that I don’t give much of a damn for politics or manners. And yet, with all my ardor I was quickly subdued by a curt rebuke by my interlocutors (for Zimri was there as well), which was, quite simply, that you hadn’t taken Homer for any more than a creative poet, even after a few thousand years of study, so why should my meager manuscript make such a large impact. At that, I acquiesced to them and admitted that on that end my attempt to save humanity one way or another was contemptible, but I still write, as you see, for the story’s sake, and possibly for my own material immortality. But never mind that, for it is high time that I went back to my story.
I was looking through the spyglass at the various areas of Daem where my adventures had so far taken me. After I had examined them all for a few moments, I felt a strange urge to use the telescope to look closely at the mainland that I had seen before, to see what the effects of the Great War had been there. As I turned the telescope’s sights toward it, I was at once surprised and flabbergasted at what caught my eye. There were living beings on the mainland, not too far from the coast. And not only that, but they were standing upright, though stooped, as if by weariness and the wiles of life, and they seemed, in general, to resemble humans, not directly, but as much as the Zards and Canitaurs did, and with the effects of the radioactive instability greater on the mainlands, it would seem natural that they would be further removed from normality than those on Daem. The land itself was barren and flat, with sparse vegetation in the forms of small, deformed shrubs and a short, weak looking grass. As I looked closer I saw that there were about six of the strange, stooped humanoids, and they were gathering the fruits of some of the shrubs for consumption. In a few moments they finished their task and began to walk further inland, and I followed their progress with interest until they finally disappeared behind some of the small plateaus that were scattered here and there among the wastelands.
Putting the telescope down, I walked over to the couch and laid down on it, with indignation filling my every move, for I was almost enraged that the Zards and Canitaurs both should fail to tell me, whom they claimed to respect as kinsman redeemer and whose decisions would seal their fate for good or ill, that there were other survivors from the Great Wars. I was also shocked by their selfishness, for while they fought pettily amongst themselves over how they would change their lands for the better, a seemingly important question about past and future, they completely ignored the sufferings of other humanoids, to whom their way of living no doubt seemed like a paradise. But there they were, stuck across the sea on their desolate lands, unable to cross to Daem and enjoy its plentiful resources and luxuries, yet not at all unaware of them, for as they labored in their hopeless ways, they could see Daem shining like a heavenly vision before them, one which they were not able to touch or grasp, but instead one that must infuriate them to no end in their heart, at the knowledge of fate’s unfairness and their utter hopelessness and complete poverty, not because of their laziness or their ignorance or anything involving their actions whatsoever, but simply because they had been born on the wrong side of the sea.
At that moment I was embittered against both the Zards and the Canitaurs for their selfishness and their pretensions of morality. There is no morality where one sees another starving and suffering and does not help, when one sees a whole race of people living on a land where nothing but sorrows dwell, but will not let them share the wealth that was given one by no doing of oneself. There is no morality in selfishness, and when I saw those wretched people, I no longer felt like redeeming those on Daem from the impending doom of humanity. Whatever plans they had for me they never told, I sensed, for there was something deeply wrong about the way they looked at me and talked about me, something deeply wrong about the way they patronized me and treated me like a silly child, while I was the one who was to decide their fate. The Canitaurs and the Zards both looked at me with a subtle sense of deceit and ill will, all that is, except Bernibus, which is why our friendship flourished so swiftly. As I laid there with thoughts of Onan and the decision that I was to make, and of all the responsibility that was put upon me involuntarily, as I thought of the conflict of past and future at the neglect of the present, as I thought about the self-obsession and overindulgence that come with wealth, and the desire for still more that accompanies it, I fell to sleep and into a place where no troubles lay, for my long day and night had left in me no energy for dreams.
When I awoke the sun was once more out in its morning glory, at the height it assumes at about the 9 o’clock hour, and the room was warm and cozy because of it, as it shone in through the glass walls. My first sensation upon waking was one of peace and bliss, the feeling experienced when you wake up late to a nice warm resting place, especially so when all the rest of the world is hard at work and you are not. I breathed in the air deeply and contentedly while stretching my arms, legs, and back in a most relieving fashion, and then turned towards the table in the center of the room, from whence I smelled an extremely appealing smell, that of a hearty breakfast.
As I did so, however, my joy was sent to a bitter, premature death, for there sitting at the table and smiling sardonically at me was the King, arrayed in all his pomp and splendor with his powerful pose, which, while it had impressed, and even to a point overwhelmed me, before, did no such thing to me now, for I was fresh with indignation at the exclusion of the humanoids across the sea from the paradise of Daem.
He saluted me in a polite manner, and I him, though there was little affection behind it. Then, without any more ceremony, I sat down and began to eat, repulsing any attempt of his to start a conversation with persistent vigor, until I had finished, when I stood and demanded where exactly I was to make my toiletry. He laughed and said that he was wondering how long I would last, but as I was still too unpleasant to respond with any familiarity, he showed me to a little room that was tucked off of the side of the bell that formed the entrance to the domed chambers of the upper tower. The top of the tower itself was a half complete sphere, while the room only occupied the upper half, so that the bottom was divided between the entry way and the toiletry room. I spent a few moments grooming and washing myself and preparing for the day, and then rejoined him in the room. He was still sitting on his chair and I took the other. The meal had been carried away.
He began the conversation by saying, “My dear Jehu, I must apologize for keeping you in this position, but you must understand that the outcome of this war is very serious, and I will not risk it to your sensationalism.â€
“Sensationalism!†returned I, “Is that how you would describe a touch of humanity?â€
“What do you mean?†he questioned, apparently interested in what I said.
“Well,†I began, regaining myself, my former indignation being exhausted by the spirit of my opening comments, and my normal sober reasoning returning, “I have been observing your society, which you suppose to be enlightened, but I have seen some things, which, I am afraid, are evidences of the opposite.â€
“Go on,â€
“For one, your common folk engage in the most violent entertainment. I saw a vicious game being played not far from here, in the plaza below. There were two sides, and they rushed at each other in a rage and clashed when they met until one side tackled the other. This went on for some time, the evident point of the sport being to gain points by making it so that one of the opposing players cannot get up at the end of a round. It was so brutal that I was disgusted and could watch no more.â€
“Yes, I see what you mean,†the King replied, “I myself would much rather that such games would be forsaken, but the people really enjoy it. I must remind you, as well, that your society had the same type of thing, as did every other before it. It was football for you, gladiators for the Romans, and so forth.â€
“But I thought that you had no traditions? That you were more enlightened than those of the past? You can hardly excuse your misconduct by reminding one of the misconduct of another, especially when you claim to disclaim the errors of history, or at least, that altered and redefined thing that you call history.â€
“You are right, I have to admit,†he conceded, “But let me remind you that it is a static characteristic of humanity to confuse the ends with the means. When an intense effort is applied, the melodramatic tendency is to honor that effort, despite its uselessness, instead of honoring the product of the effort rather than the effort itself. But, you are right, I admit, for we have still a few places left to refine in the common folk.â€
Feeling vainglorious at my victory, I pursued him further, “I also observed that your womenfolk wear face coverings in public, which is most certainly a thing of the past.â€
“I must disagree with you there Jehu,†he said, evidentially regaining his confidence and sense of moral footing, “For even in your own time the womenfolk all wore masks and face coverings.â€
I was taken aback and cried, “Most certainly they did not, your history books may say so, but I, dear sir, was alive and would know best!â€
“What, then,†he coolly replied, with a sharp grin that reeked of self-confidence, “Would you call all the messes of make-up and perfume and other such things which they were virtually forced to wear? I see nothing different between wearing face coverings and transplanting an entirely new face, hair, and body on oneself everyday. In fact, our women got together and decided voluntarily to do so, for the very reason that if an artificial covering must be put on, it might as well be one that is easy, for why spend an hour or more a day to change one’s appearance, when it can be done in moments with a head covering? That is a great time saver for us. And why spend the resources to research, produce, and market massive amounts of facial paint to cover up the face when it is possible to put a covering on and get the same effect much, much easier? It is only logical.
“And in general, Jehu,†he pursued, warming to the subject matter, “I find the oppression of women in your time to be quite appalling. You seemed to think that the liberation of women consisted in transforming them into loveless, materialistic thugs, into workaholics whose only desire is wealth, into aggression driven beings that possessed little shred of real humanity, into, in a word, men. I think it would have been a much better endeavor to have attempted to change men into women.â€
I was taken aback by his eloquent defense of the treatment of women in his society, and felt, I must admit, a little impressed by his arguments, seeing as how it did make more sense to wear a head covering than to paint on a face every morning. Still, I desired to let him see that traditions aren’t all that bad, just as they aren’t all that good, and, as I had still won one point out of two so far, I felt it safe to move on to my main argument against his humanistic preponderance.
“You are right there, I admit, but tell me, your majesty,†I said with a slow, scoffing voice, meant to show that I had a powerful point to make, and as if I had to go slow enough for him to comprehend the eloquence of my speech, “Why, if you are so enlightened and progressive, so humanitarian and merciful, why do you keep a whole race of people, of human beings, stranded on the far shore, able to see the goodness of Daem’s plush lands, but unable to visit them? How can you justify the keeping of people in such conditions when it is in your power to relieve them?â€
He sobered up more than he already was and answered in his most dignified voice, one calculated to stop opposition by its very graces, “Their plight is unfortunate, but as they are not my subjects, it is none of my concern.â€
“So you knew of them, but did not care. How typical of powerful men. What are they called?â€
“Munams,†he answered, “Is what we call them, though people of your time had a different name for them, Neanderthal, if I am correct.â€
My intrigue superseded my conviction and I asked interestedly, “But, how is that possible? The Neanderthals were the ancestors of men in my time, and the men of my time were the ancestors of the men of this time, how could they be living now?â€
“Very simply, for your scientists and philosophers did not understand the revolution of time, and what they thought was evolution was in fact devolution. You see, when they found all the fossils and other such evidence for evolution, they interpreted it to mean that they had evolved from lesser organisms. Since they didn’t know that time repeats itself over and over again, ages of time being like the years of the earth, it was actually the remains of the age before them that they thought were the remains of their ancestors. In truth, instead of a great comet hitting the earth and destroying the dinosaurs and many other living beings, it was the Great Wars, the nuclear wars, that caused all the damage. And since their perception of the events was backward, instead of the blasts destroying the dinosaurs and the wholly mammoths, it was what actually created them, for, you see, after the nuclear weapons had all been used, everything in the world died, or came very close to it, all that is, except Daem, which thrived, because of the delcator beetles.
“There were no ‘dinosaurs’, only Zards, for when the radiation levels were still high and unstable, we grew to enormous sizes, and likewise there were no wholly mammoths, but Canitaurs. And the Neanderthals that appeared shortly after were not the precursors to humans at all, but the Munams, who survived on the mainland near Daem because of the corrected atmosphere, but who were mutilated more than we by the increased corruption across the sea. The Ice Ages, also, were not as you thought, but instead mark the position in the last age after the doom of humanity was played out and everything destroyed. The Big Bang, also, was not at the beginning, but at the very end, being somehow related to the onset of the Ice Ages. Your evolutionary theories were close, but the time tables were rearranged to fit the facts, since time was thought to be linear.
“That is where our main trouble lies, Jehu, for through geological and biological evidences, even more advanced than those collected during your times, we can tell that something happens at this very period of history that will wipe all life from the face of the earth for a long period of time, many thousands of years, until somehow they start to reproduce and grow once more into what they are now. Something very powerful happens, even more devastating than the nuclear wars, when all the nations of the world used their entire stock of weapons. Our problem is how to prevent it, and a great problem it presents, indeed. You see, while we would wish to be confident of success, since we know generally what to expect, we know through research that there have been many, many ages before us in which the same thing has happened. That is why the geological layers have always been found to be strangely misaligned, with fossils from an earlier period here and with a later period there. That is why things like tree fossils are found in coal mines, where they shouldn’t be, and why in general, the evidence found in the ground doesn’t fit a consistent pattern.â€
As he finished, I could say nothing, for his revelation was sobering to me, bringing me suddenly back to the realization that our doom was impending, that every decision I made had the potential to either bring us to safety, or to supply the necessary force to hurl us viscously off the cliff of mortality. He was silent as well and allowed me a few moments of meditation to turn his speech in my mind. As is my tendency, I looked abstractly out the window as I thought, fixing my subconscious focus on the road that ran from the northern gate down through the city, the road which formed half of the plaza beneath the temple. A moment or two passed like a solemn parade of mourning, then, suddenly, or at least quite unexpected by myself, a party of Canitaurs came walking down the northern road, unharassed and unescorted through the heart of the city. Since they came freely, I knew that they were not prisoners, but still I was perplexed at how a party of them came to be allowed in Nunami at all under such pretexts, especially as they had attempted to bring it to ruin but a few days before.
The King saw their coming and my interest in them, and said in a way of explanation, “There is to be a council today between the Zards and Canitaurs, with you present, of course. Our war has rampaged for quite some time, but we are forced to peace in light of our impending doom, brought by circumstances outside of ourselves. We will decide tonight, or tomorrow, what action to take. It is a grim time, you can be sure, my dear Jehu, when Zards and Canitaurs meet in peace, a grim time indeed.â€
He said that very importantly, with an air of fright in his voice, as one who knows his end is near, for both him and his loved ones. There was another moment of silence as he reflected on the meaning of his words, and then he rose and beckoned me to follow him. We made our way through the bottom half of the room and down the long flight of stairs that wound down the great tower in the Temple of Time. When we reached the bottom, we went again into the long room with the bookshelves, the table, and the altar to Temis. Already there waiting for us were the Canitaur emissaries, Wagner and Bernibus.
They rose to greet me, bowing low in a deferential manner, more out of forced respect than awe, at least on Wagner’s part, and after the customary blessing that followed, we all sat down at the long wooden table that stretched lengthwise through the room. Wagner and Bernibus took their chairs on one side and the King and myself on the other, he and Wagner being opposite each other, and Bernibus and me being the same; the King and I were facing the altar and the White Eagle that held it.
There was a moment of silence as we took our seats, and it continued for another moment as everyone sat in an awkward situation. As there was no one else in the room besides the four of us, and as Wagner seemed disinclined to begin, the King opened up our conference with the following statement:
“Well, dear sirs, what can I say, except that I am glad that you have finally condescended to seek a mutual agreement on the actions which are about to ensue, and that I hope that our conference will be productive and informative. Before we begin, I will outline the rules of the debate and of the conference, which were agreed upon before the military action of the recent past,†here he looked at Wagner with the look of a judge who supposes himself morally superior to the criminal in his holding, “And by which we will still govern the council, despite the sudden change in circumstances. The rules are as follows: The decision shall be made by the votes of the three parties involved, namely the Zards, the Canitaurs, and Jehu, the kinsman redeemer. A majority of two votes is required to decide which of the paths will be taken: the Futurist or the Pastite. As is clearly obvious, my dear Jehu, I shall vote Futurist, and Wagner shall vote Pastite, and it is up to you to cast the decisive vote. You are the kinsman redeemer, and for all intents and purposes, you will be the sole decider of the fate of humanity. It is a great responsibility, but one that you were chosen for by the child of Temis, the God of Time. Wagner and myself will each make our cases, though you know them by now, and then you will have all night to decide and you will tell us your decision in the morning,†thus concluded the King’s opening address.
Before anyone else could follow it up, I interjected, “But I was sent by Onan to do his work on earth, wouldn’t it only make sense for me to choose the way of Onan?â€
The King answered me, saying, “You were sent by Temis, the God of Time, Jehu, for Onan and Zimri are his children who do his work for him, but they only have the powers that he gave them. Onan is the only one able to speak to mortals, for he is in the past, while Zimri is in the future, but Onan also speaks for Zimri, because he is told what to say by Temis, whose agents they both are as much as you are Onan’s. Isn’t that so, Wagner?â€
Wagner sighed in the affirmative, and when he had done so, I asked him pointedly, “Why didn’t you tell me? You led me to believe that Onan was the one who sent me, and by his own power.â€
Here the King put in, “He merely wanted to prejudice you to his own side, Jehu. He attempted to by-pass our peace treaty of long ago when he tried to attack us and capture this very temple for his own plans. We agreed twenty-five years ago to do it this way, because enough blood had been shed, and no good had come from it. He violated it when he took you into hiding, using our pursuit after his treachery as justification. But come, in the face of impending doom we cannot squabble over past wrongs, but must move to prevent future disaster from striking.â€
“What is so important about this Temple of Time, though?†I asked.
Wagner and the King mumbled together that “It was an essential part of the restoration of Daemâ€, but would not elaborate, saying that it was unimportant to the present troubles. They looked guilty as they said it, though of what I did not know. I was reminded of my indignation at their ignoring of the sufferings of the Munams and became once more impatient with their self-importance, so I yielded the floor and they began to make their cases. In order to decide who went first, they drew lots, and as the shorter was drawn by Wagner, he went first. His speech is as follows:
“The past is constant, Jehu. It has happened and is secure in its place, explored and known. The traditions and customs of our people are steadfast and immovable, for they have survived the ages like a mountain that is untouched by the weather. They have lasted so long not because of the mere namesake of tradition, but because they work, because they have worked thousands of times before, and because we know they will work a thousand times in the future. What was good enough for the generations before us is good enough for us and our children. A tradition, or taboo, is not formed by the decision of some contemporary council as a means to control others via social restrictions, for if it was it would never have lasted, instead it is formed because of experience, because when something goes beyond it the result is temporary pleasure, the nectar of the fruits of rebellion, but when the rebellious desires have faded, what is left is rotten and decayed.
“It brings only more desires for rebellion and more thirst for the forsaking of traditions, and it will not be satisfied. Then another taboo will be broken, but this also will not quench the desires of the rebellious, who do what they do not for any independent purpose, but only from a desire to break traditions and taboos and to be different than their forebears. But there is no satisfaction in rebellion, only in obedience. Obedience not to some alien divinity, not to some social supremest, not to the blind devotion of parental mandates, but obedience to common sense, to practicality, to morality. For a taboo is not formed by any one person, instead it is slowly built up upon the experiences of many, experiences which show that when one thing is done, suffering is what follows, and when another thing is done, happiness is what follows. Of course there are a few, isolated taboos that are based instead on human prejudices, but that doesn’t translate into the abandonment of all the experience of precedents. What comes when there are no longer any taboos and traditions to break? Destruction. For as is seen time and again, the rebellion of societies gains momentum, and while their consequences are slow in gathering, in the end they multiply and force those societies over the edge of power, bringing only suffering and ruin.
“And not only are the experiences of the past wielded together into that euphoria that eludes the rebellious - wisdom - but its constant state controls the present and the future. What men have seen in the past leads them in their future actions, and as a result, it is not the future that controls the present and defines the past, but it is the past which controls the present and defines the future. What sense is there in abandoning the mountain of wisdom that the past has built up and leaping blindly into hazy, unknown actions and institutions? The past is steady, Jehu, and it is known; it is the only sensible way.†Thus spoke Wagner.
It was then the King’s turn, and he said as follows:
“The past is the past, not the present nor the future, its time has been spent, its part in the theater of life is over, it is extinct. Jehu, Wagner speaks of us as rebelliously breaking taboos that were formed by our forefathers, but that is not true. In the present more is known than was known in the past, they had outdated views and opinions, and their ideologies were vulgar and unsophisticated. At present we are more knowledgeable, more refined than what has gone before. The people of the past waged unjust wars. They had superstition and prejudices that clouded their visions of morality, and the product of that is a large amount of taboos and precedents and traditions that are immoral or meaningless. Now is the age of enlightenment, now and never before is the future at hand, mixing with the present as we learn more and more about our world. We are progressive, learning and growing in philosophy and lifestyle.
“If those of the past were so upright and wise, than why are they not still among the living? If they were so powerful, then why are they now extinct? The past is gone, but the future is yet to come, it still holds tangible pleasures, not memories, it has promise and potential, while the past is only the ruins of the same. When the past is looked back upon, it is small and immaterial, it is like time crumpled up into a wad of memories, and a time yesterday or a thousand years ago looks the same, for it is past, it is no more. Life is not short, but in retrospect it seems to be, and its memories are distant, as they float like fish in the oceans of time, lacking both definition and scale, and hanging lifelessly around in random arrays. Every moment is of the same length, but a moment in the past is nothing, its thoughts and emotions are nothing, they are gone and useless to the present, while a moment in the future is long and touchable. A thought that is past is as nothing, and it is forgotten, for the past and the future are like a one-way mirror, you can look forward into the future, but looking into the past you can see only the present reflected back at you. What good are the joys or sorrows of yesterday? They are as far removed as those of a thousand years ago, but it is the joys and sorrows of tomorrow that loom the largest. Why look into the past for completion, when it is found only in the future?†Thus spoke the King.
Once both of them had finished there was a short pause, each reflective and absorbed with his own thoughts. At last the King broke through the still waters of the moment and sent his rippling voice across its formless surface, which revived at once and was joined by many others, until the outward expression of consciousness sent the waters of the mind again into their complex and interwoven dances. He spoke in the department of host and concluded the short session with these words, “Now the cases are stated, though but briefly, for they were already well-known. As planned prior to the infractions of the treaty, we will adjourn for the night, and in the morning Jehu will deliver his verdict, whether we undo our problem through the future, or through the past.â€
We all rose and Bernibus, my only friend on the island, came up to me and warmly embraced me, while Wagner and the King conversed formally a few yards away. When they were not looking and our backs were turned to them, Bernibus slipped me a piece of paper that was rolled up into a tight scroll. Seeing his caution and secrecy, I quickly stashed it in the inside of my shirt, where it could not be seen. I was alarmed at the momentary expression of his face, which showed that he was greatly worried about me, and made me very interested in what the paper would contain. His face quickly returned to its original countenance, an impermeable barrier to his insides, and no one except myself had any inclination about what had happened. The other two turned towards us, and quickly made their farewells, Wagner and Bernibus departing for their quarters, and the King to escort me back to my prison.
He took my arm in his genially, though only superficially so, for he still had a subdued sense of distrust about him, and we went through the door to the long, circling stairway from whence we had come. As we ascended we engaged in small talk, the usual meaningless pleasantry, which I assume you have probably had enough of in your experiences to allow me to dispense with relating it, for it was of no weight in any of the circumstances that I found myself in, and I especially was not interested in it, as the paper given to me by Bernibus claimed my whole attention, and filled me with an anticipation and mystery of what it might contain. I kept up the small talk with the King merely to allay any suspicions he might have had, though he had none. After a seeming eternity we reached the top, and once there I stepped into my chambers, as the King jestingly called them. We bade each other goodnight, which was followed by the metallic click of the door locking, and the sound his footsteps as he descended and made his way to his palace.