Taox

I

I am a creature of fear.

I have been running all my life, even before I fled my home. Driven by terrors both real and imagined.

Even here, in this hidden fastness, remote and isolate, I know I am not safe. I know. I watched as those who made it for me were either torn apart or driven so mad that they cast themselves into the corona of the star. If the architects of this place were not safe, how could I be?

My fear has shaped my world, your world, the cosmos. Scarred, would perhaps be the more fitting word. It’s not that what I once feared has come to pass, oh no, what I have caused, what I awoke, has been infinitely worse.

And so I hide here. Alone, with my fear. I wait. And watch.

I am a creature of time.

I have lived for far, far too long. Far longer than I had any right, or wish to. But the fear has kept me pinioned, imprisoned in this life, fear of waits beyond that threshold, but fear also of what may reach beyond it, may bait me and hook me and pluck me back should I ever let go.

I sleep. For hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, I sleep. I sink into a bath of embalming fluid, and watch as the surface frosts, then freezes hard, entombing me inside. I fear I may never awake. I fear the day that I must. I close my eyes, and sleep.

The system of this station wakes me when there is something new to fear.

And I say to you now, there has never been a time when I have been more afraid.

 

II

Shortly after I fled my home, I spoke with Her once, I think. It was so long ago, and the long centuries of sleep have dimmed the memory. I spoke with Them, as well, and the memory is a nightmare I shall never forget.

They spoke to me of their observations, of the hard and sharp laws by which the universe runs, of the inevitable conclusion. You have met Them, you have heard their prattle.

Look, they said, existence is the struggle to exist. Therefore, only that which cannot be killed is worthy of life. All we do is test and observe, and guide life towards this realization. That which is immortal, which no thing can kill, this is the final, perfect shape of the universe.

She on the other hand, was like an ancient, wise mother. It seemed as though we shared a pot of warm and scented jelly. She floated beside me, a familiar and silent presence, and in the silence I asked her about what They had said to me.

She sighed and said: Do you want to know the final shape of the universe?

I said I did.

She said: Okay, it’s a donut. Well, a torus, if the word ‘donut’ feels too silly. There, feel better now?

I said I did not.

Of course not, she said. Existence is always its own point, otherwise there is none. Knowing the final form of the universe tells you nothing about how to live in it. There’s nothing particularly logical or reasonable about saying what currently “is” and what “should be” are the same. The speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 meters per second, but there’s nothing magical about that number. It doesn’t mean everything should travel that fast.

Are They right though? Is all life struggle? Is this all there is?

Up to you, she said. It is, if you want it to be. It can be other. I’m all about possibilities, not answers.

But the unknown frightens me, I admitted.

Well, she sighed again. I guess that’s one way to live.

 

III

Fear has led me down many dark paths. My fear led me to betray my king. Fear led me to command the deaths of his daughters. My fear drove them to become what they became.

Fear drove me from my home, and into the moons above. The daughters followed. Fear drove me to flee again, the sisters ever at my heels. They are terrible. So terrible. But they are not what I fear.

I do not fear them, nor the parasites they carry inside their bodies, nor Them of the black dreams, for which those parasites are mere conduits. Nor do I fear Her, who drinks jelly and sees meaning in all things, both suffering and joy.

This is a new thing.

IV

This station orbits a white dwarf star, a singleton, far from the main arms of the galaxy. Almost gone, quite dim, just a little heat left. It cools, slowly, over the eons, leaching what little life it has into the void and the station taps that heat to power its systems and keep this aging carapace alive.

Those who built it for me gave it eyes to see, ears to hear, instantly and over immense distances. They do not obey the laws of physics, tapping into the paracausal energy She uses to fertilize and cultivate the world of matter and energy.

The system waits and watches for other paracausal forces, both Hers and Theirs, pricks me awake and draws me back to the surface when there is a spike.

I awake to fear, for I know it only wakes me when there is something to be afraid of.

I climb from my bed, my tank, my tomb, trembling and shaking, and I hurry to the observatory.

It shows me chaos, destruction, death, and forgive me, for although this is you and your kind, these images are nothing new to me. I have seen the fiery death of great interstellar civilizations, and the collapse of yet another small and limited culture makes me feel nothing but weary resignation. Ah, this again. It is always the same.

And yet. No. Something quite different.

The chaos, destruction, death does not abate. The victims do not quietly slink off into extinction. The violence grows. It grows and grows and grows and grows. The dead stir, seeking glory and vengeance. There come those with lightning and fire and darkness in their hands. Insane, enraged, berserk, the fighting tears through the fabric of time, through the tapestry of the universe, threatens to unravel everything. A dark god falls, and so great is the battle that the earthquake of his landing causes barely a stir, a flicker, a minor pause.

(Aurash. Poor, deluded, Aurash, your visions finally led you astray. 

In my station, alone, I fall to the ground, crying out.

 

V

Sathona thinks herself clever. She is foolish in the way only the truly cunning are.

She has constructed a loop of time. Into this loop, she invited a thing which kills but cannot die. She plans to feed on its killing.

Fool. She thinks she is the only thing that grows stronger through death.

Listen:

Death is its teacher.

Listen:

When it awoke, the Eliksni hunted it. It died. It learned to hunt.

Now it hunts the Eliksni. Their Kells and Archons are dead.

Listen:

The Cabal made war on it. It died. It learned to wage war.

Now it wars on the Cabal. Their Dominus and his legions are dead.

 

Listen:

The Vex tried to tear it from time. It died. It learned to tear time apart.

Now it tears Vex from every timeline. Their Minds are dead.

Listen:

Aurash tried to take it and drown it in the Deep. It died. It learned to swim in the Deep.

Now it swims in the Deep. Aurash is dead, his children are dead, his worm god is dead.

A thing once small and hunted thing now hunts, makes war, steps across dimensions, kills gods, breaks time across its knee without a thought. Because it died, and it learned, and it came back. It always comes back.

This is what Sathona thinks she has caught: This unstoppable thing that only grows through death.

That is what I fear now.

This ‘Guardian.’

 

VI

Sathona calls herself the queen of lies.

Here is the thing about lies: The universe does not care what you believe.

She watches the Guardian kill and kill and kill and claps her hands and lies and says “Yes, this is just as I planned.”

The universe does not care what she planned.

She feeds the monster and thinks it is her pet and she will go on believing that until the day it turns and decides to make her its next meal.

The universe does not care, and neither does the Guardian.

 

VII

Here is its secret, so terrible I can barely find courage to speak it.

It is anchored in a place outside.

Ascendant realms, the pocket universe that birthed the Awoken, the Infinite Forest, even these spaces are all tied to here, inside, dependent on it for existence. But this one Guardian, it is different. Part of it is ... elsewhere.

Whisper it: I do not think it can die.

It is the unkillable thing, the thing the Hive claim to have been searching for all these long, long centuries, the thing they have found though they know it not, or would reject even if they knew, for they are proud and will never accept something else is mightier. It is the final shape of the universe (or it would be, if it were here, but part of it is not).

No weapon or force, however mighty, can ever kill it forever, for that weapon would be of here, and this Guardian is of there.

VIII

How then, can we prevent it from becoming the emperor of everything, a terrible tyrant over all of creation?

 

IX

It cannot be defeated in battle. If the Eliksni and Cabal and Hive and Vex haven’t learned that yet, perhaps Aurash is right, they deserved to die.

Sathona came close to understanding, but the worm inside her drove her to feed, and so she has fed it. But the kernel, the first rune of her inscription came close to the solution. A loop is what is needed, and endless cycle in which it can be trapped.

For all his self-indulgent folly, the fat grey slug on his floating pleasure palace, the lord of the luxurious prison, had the right of it. Flatter it, fatten it, give it things to find, games to play, puzzles to solve, give it a purpose, and it remains happy.

I beg of you then, keep it from harm (it feeds on death in a way not even the Hive can begin to match), but distract it, give it games and puzzles and endless repeated tasks, keep it locked away from dangers, for those only make it mightier and one day its strength will end everything.

Will you do that, Little Light? Ghost of the Guardian?

Will you stop that which I fear most from coming to pass?

Save us from what you have created. As I once tried to.

                                                                                                T A O X