Close to the Start

  He woke in the darkness to find himself alone. He had grown used to restless nights, sleeping less as he'd aged, and sighed at the memory of a long past youth when sleepless nights had been a treasure he'd shared with his love, not the burden they were now, fifty years later… such magic they'd weaved, defying the nay-sayers who'd warned against relationships between men and immortals, and warned of the sad ends that await those foolish enough to take an elfen lover. But they had made it work, and for his part he regretted nothing. How she felt he could not say, for recently she had grown distant… which thought made him wonder where she was, and he rose, dressed and waving various waiting servants away - did they never sleep? - he walked the castle until he found her where she was often to be found, on the battlements under the cold stars.

  She did not turn or say anything as he came up to her, but remained standing, looking out across the city towards the harbour; a tall figure cloaked in darkness. He stood behind her and took her in his arms. She was quiet for a minute and then said in a sad small voice "It is time, my love."

  He understood what she meant, and the night chill seeped into him, a presentiment of death. The time he had feared, the time he had lived most of his life dreading, had arrived. He had still hoped it would somehow pass him by, he could not have lived otherwise, not without believing that the gods would decree an exception, that the fates would look the other way. But had always known they would not. As she had often said, this world was cruel.

  "You…" his voice faltered. An old man's voice. He hated it, and the querulous tone, and started again. "You are sure? You must… leave?"

  "Yes." She paused, then continued. "But not just me. This age of the world is ending. The time of the Elves is over, now it is the time of Men… we cannot stay, our purpose is fulfilled. It would be harmful for us to remain… you must find your own path. And there are no more dragons left to slay, as you well know" She chuckled and he knew they were both remembering their first meeting and her rescue… she continued after a beat. "The Dwarves have already gone, now the fair-folk must leave and pass into myth. Few still remain, and the last ship is leaving tonight. It will take us back to our homeland, far away across strange seas. I must leave with it."

  She turned, and lowered her hood, and he was struck dumb. He was wearing the body of an old man, while she had only aged slightly… but seeing her in the lamplight he realised even that slight ageing must have been artifice, which she was no longer employing, for she now looked exactly as she had fifty years ago. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

  "I wanted you to remember me like this" she said. "As I am… as I will always be…"

  And before he could find any words, she was gone.

  How long he stood there before he came back to his senses he did not know, but dawn was breaking. He summoned guards and made his way down to the courtyard, where he shouted until a carriage appeared and raced him to the harbour… he was in luck, a strange sailless Elfin ship was still berthed, waiting on the tide.

  Although in theory he owned the harbour and everything in it, it was unwise to annoy a race as magical as the elves, so rather than simply board the ship a standoff developed between his party and the Elven crew, which was only resolved when she appeared and walked down the gangplank. She spoke to the captain in Elvish, and he laughed, replied in the same musical tongue, shrugged and went back about the ship.

  "What did he say?"

  "You do not want to know." She said.

  "I rather think I do"

  "Well, it could be translated as..." she paused, "It's your pet, you can bring it if you want"

  "What?"

  "I told you you didn't want to know." She sighed. "But, okay… here's the deal. We're going on a long voyage, which will take many years, but for us little time will pass. You have a lot to learn before I can explain that… but our, um, magics can restore your youth, and for a barbarian you are pretty bright. And you would see wonders… and maybe one day we'll return to this world and see how mankind turns out. There are rules; we can only point you in the right direction, you see, after that it's up to you. We must not interfere too much… but, anyway, you have to decide, there's no turning back. If you come along you'll never see your kingdom again, it'll be long gone"

  He thought for but a moment.

  "Fuck the kingdom"

  As he started up the gangplank he realised he was still wearing his crown, and stopped. He removed it and held the circle of gold. It seemed to weigh less than it ever had.

  "Guess I won't be needing this" he said, turned and caught the eye of the captain of his guards. Making sure he had his attention he said "Catch!" and threw him the crown, then turned back.

  "Sire!" He heard, but didn't respond. "Sire! What do I do with it? Who is to be king?"

  He paused.

  "Round up everyone in the castle who wants to be king, then ignore them and give it to someone better qualified."

Close to the End

She walked through the encampment of the army, her army, after another day of fighting that had not ended decisively, but simply petered out until the opposing forces withdrew from the field in disorder to rest, depleted and unable to continue. It was strangely silent, even the complaints of the wounded lacked any sense of purpose. Overhead an unnatural sky flicked with all the colours of chaos, throwing painful moving shadows on the ground from the few ragged tents that still survived and had owners with the energy to erect them. Here and there small fires had been lit and these drew the eye with their welcome normality, until the eye saw the exhausted figures sat or slumped around them, and recoiled. Would the enemy's camp look as disordered? Surely it must. How ironic it would be if it did not, if the forces of Chaos were, in the end, more ordered than the forces of Law.

She reached the edge of camp, a distressingly small distance with so few of her forces left, and looked out towards the Tower. It rose from the floor of the valley to an impossible height, thinning until the top disappeared into the sky's chaos. Around its base the enemy camped, showing only as a few fixed spots of fire in the changing amorphous lighting. In the distance the backdrop of mountains that surrounded and defined the valley seemed to shimmer and dance, their very reality now under threat… she knew that the world stopped at those mountains, and as the end of time drew near space had twisted and shrunk in upon itself and the world she had known, all the worlds that had ever existed, were gone… runners sent out of the valley, the few who were brave enough to enter the chaos where the sky now met the earth, reported that no matter which direction they took into the nightmare realm they soon found themselves returned to the valley. Her mathematicians had explained that there was no outside, but her mind recoiled from the idea. It was better to believe that the worlds of her memory still existed and would continue to exist, than face the fact that soon nothing would remain, not this last valley, not even the Tower, which had been the centre of the universe, of all the realms of life, since the dawn of time itself… all would soon be dissolved back into the formless chaos.

With a discrete cough he announced his presence beside her. She nodded at the wizard, as he too stood looking at the Tower, and thought to ask the question she had asked before, but which he had always deflected.

  "How old are you? And the truth this time, please. My father said he had known you as a child, and his father before him, and you had not changed. So I know you are old, but there are tales going back to old Earth itself of wizards, before and after science, and I, well…"

He was silent for so long she wondered if he had heard her. But his eyes had lost their focus on the Tower and it was clear he was looking into some other distance, and she waited. Eventually he looked at her then back at the Tower.

  "My lady… I was here when this was built."

  "But… The legends say the Tower was the first thing the Gods made, it was here before the world, before all the worlds, before… before people..."

  "Yes. This is so." He sighed. "I was here at the dawn of time, and it is fitting that I should be here at its end. Time was my idea, after all."

She was shocked into silence. He turned to her. "Yes. We made the Tower first. It's not just metaphorically the centre of everything, the axis on which reality turns, about which all of reality revolves… there's a degree of truth in that. It started here. It all started here. And it all ends here.

  "Why do you seek the Tower, my lady? Is it to demand answers of the Gods? It usually is. You lead the forces of Law and you fight the forces of Chaos, or more accurately those who think they champion Chaos, and both wonder what the point is? What are you hoping to find there as the last dregs of time run out? A purpose? A meaning, a justification to, to - " he gestured around "- what's left of reality? You ask the wrong questions. People always did"

  "What questions should I ask, then, here at the end of all things? What will I find in the Tower?"

  "If you reach the Tower? You will find nothing. It is empty now, emptier than the Gods it once homed. The Gods are gone, only one remains, and one isn't enough to hold back Chaos…" He turned back and looked again at the Tower. "You never understood reality at all. Outside - and your mathematicians are wrong, there is an outside to these dimensions - is Chaos, an infinite sea of possibility, utterly random, formless, eternal… and in that sea of Chaos arise creatures, who can impose their will, locally, and briefly… it comes to nothing. They arise and dream and fade away. An infinite futility… but sometimes it happens that several meet and join and dream together, combined they are strong enough to inflate a bubble of their will, impose order on a point and inflate a bubble in the sea of Chaos with rules they create, and from these rules came complexity. Your reality is a shared dream of creatures you call Gods. But their interest waned. Good and Evil? Gods and Demons? Just contending philosophies, now played out and understood, and ultimately boring… Your Gods grew tired and lost interest.

  "No, there is no purpose. With the will that created it gone this will all fade back into Chaos. An infinite Chaos where all dreams exist… to be dreamed over and over again, no doubt, but never with purpose."

After he stopped talking, and she had waited to see if he had finished, she turned and walked back. There didn't seem to be anything else to do.

Thursday's Child

Finally it was here! The moment she had been waiting for all her life, for as long as she could remember, was here! She had reached the age, no longer a child, and in just a couple of minutes it would be time and a lifetime of waiting would be over.

"Do us proud, love" said her dad, struggling to hide his emotion.
"I will!" She said, hugging him.
"You will" Her mother echoed, in a haunted whisper. "I'm sure you will"

Her brothers were silent, knowing the honour - as third-born - was hers and hers alone, but one, grim-faced, managed to to hold back his reservations and held a thumb up. The other, unable or unwilling to look at her opened the front door and held it for them to leave.

Outside, the neighbours were silent, each family standing in front of their own house as ritual demanded, as the Thursday ritual had demanded since before she was born.

She led her brothers and parents out of the house, without looking back, and bowed to the street, first to the left, and then to the right. The families solemnly bowed back in return, and somewhere a sob was heard, but quickly silenced.

She faced forward and raised her arms, somewhere a clock started to strike the hour, eight o'clock, and across the city noise erupted as behind her her father raised the knife.

And struck.

Heaven and Hell

It was night again, another lonely day had passed… He found himself standing alone in his conservatory, not knowing how long he had been there.

"Christ, what's the point?" he muttered, alone in his empty house, alone in his empty life, with the lights off, looking out through a glass door into a darkness so complete that although he knew there were fields stretching away to the horizon outside, all he could see was a faint reflection of a face, lined and older than it ought to be, and blurred both by tears and foggy condensation on the glass.

He put a finger to the condensation, and slowly traced out her initials inside a crude heart-shape. He said her name softly, trying to believe that nobody was truly dead as long as their name was spoken, but knowing that was bullshit. She was dead and gone. Angrily he wiped it away, and demanded of a God he didn't believe in at all, other than as a convenient focus for his hatred, a hook on which to hang his rage, "What is the fucking point? Eh? Because I can't see one… I just can't… I'm sick of it, just make it stop. I've had enough now, you've taken her away, you take away everything I've ever loved and you - you don't even have the goddam decency to exist! There's just a pointless, empty fucking universe, no gods, no purpose, no hope..." he trailed off, wanting something to blame, but knowing he was talking to himself. Whatever existence was, whatever self-awareness was, whatever the whole damned universe was, it didn't have a complaints department. It wasn't listening. There were no gods and no purpose to any of it, and he was ashamed to find himself begging for something so absurd to exist, but unable to stop… what alternative was there? "Ah, Christ… supposed to be a god of love? You monumental cunt! Omnipotent being? That's a fucking laugh! If you were omnipotent you could damned well show yourself! Explain, answer, not skulk -"

He stopped suddenly, aware of some change in the room behind him.

"She does, you know" Said a voice. He froze. "Exist, that is… and answer questions… as you say, it's easy when you're omnipotent"

He turned so fast he banged an elbow painfully against the door-frame. Behind him, across the room a stranger was sitting in one of his chairs. Hard to see in the gloom, but definitely there. Dressed in some loose flowing material that shimmered vaguely, and probably male.

"You should sit down." It added.

Speechlessly, he did, feeling for a chair and falling into it. "Wha..." he tried, but stopped.

"You don't know this, but we've been through this before." said the stranger, and something that might have been the faintest shadow of a look of distaste crossed its face fleetingly. "Quite a few times, actually… you see, or you will, being omnipotent means She can indeed do anything. Including this… in point of fact every single question any human has ever asked of God, She has answered. Every last one… Oh, not personally, you understand, after this long there's quite a lot of help - huge staff, actually, no problem there - and well, some of us have nothing better to do with eternity than answer questions - and I can see you have another one?"

"But… I've asked before… others have… everyone has! Nobody's ever had a single damned answer!"

"Ah, well, there you're wrong. They always get answered. Every demand, every prayer, every question, gets answered. Always have, always will. That's the advantage of working outside time… question pops up, and shazam! Entire universe halted, an angel - that's me, by the way, or one of the others - gets dispatched, question gets answered, happy customer, and off it all goes again... But there's a bit of a catch, I'm afraid... if, after having your questions answered, you decide to continue the test, then you won't remember any of this… that'd be cheating, you see."

"Test?" he muttered, "what test?"

"Oh, come on, you can work that out… life, my friend. You wanted to know what the point is? It's a test. You have free will, She wants to see what you do with it. Bloody great waste of time, I'd have said, but She just makes it up as She goes along."

"But… but… all the suffering! She tortures people! Children!"

"Simulated. At least the worst cases. Amazing what you can do when you're omnipotent, and some of them enjoy it, apparently. Not really my department, though."

There was a period of silence while he tried to absorb this… "I have so many questions..." he finally said.

"You usually do" It replied. "But I know them all by heart, so let me just presume to answer them..." and it went on for some time, or maybe no time at all, until every question he had was answered, and in considerable detail.

"I understand" he said, with some understatement… "I see… So, what now?"

"Your choice. You can go back and carry on being tested, or you can elect to be judged right now, as you are, on past performance..."

He considered. It was glorious, knowing there was a point, a goal, a reason for existence. "I'll go on, I think… but - hang on, there's a test? What happens if I fail? There isn't, um..." he laughed "There can't be a hell, surely?"

"No hell?" It shuddered. "Of course there's a hell… and it's worse than you can imagine. An eternity of horror" It looked into the distance… "You see, I failed. That's why I'm here… having to spend eternity answering the same questions, over and over again, from someone who had them answered seconds before and forgot…"

The figure shuddered, then vanished.

He found himself standing alone in his conservatory, not knowing how long he had been there. "Christ, what's the point?" he muttered.