THE FIRES OF PARATIME

By L.E.Modesitt

[?? apr 2002—scanned by BW-SciFi]

[14 apr 2002—proofed by WizWav]

I

Picture a man, or, if you will, a woman, standing in an empty room, a plain hall lit by slow-glass panels and green glowstone floors.

The person standing there wears a black jumpsuit with a four-pointed star on the left collar and wide silvered wristbands. The bands contain microcircuitry.

Suddenly, the man, or, if you will, woman, is gone.

The slow-glass panels still light the hall.

Some time later—a few units, a few days, rarely longer—the traveler reappears in the same spot and walks out of the hall.

That is all there is to it, the base action of the Temporal Guard at Quest, the single city of the Immortals of Query, that hidden planet circling a very ordinary yellow sun in a very ordinary galaxy.

There's no such thing as a race of time-divers, you say, Immortals who ride the paths of time a million years or more, who manipulate cultures in their corner of the galaxy?

Let us lay that question aside for a time.

II

Call me Loki. It's as good a name as any, better than most, and besides, that's what my parents named me.

What better name for the grandson of Ragnorak, for the child of fallen heroes, fumbler in the complex intrigues of the Immortals, sometime god, time-diver, and idiot savant par excellence?

The dominoes of time have toppled, shoved into new patterns by the winds of change, those chill winds that howl down the corridors of time, those black rays of time-path tossed carelessly out by each sun and vaulted and trod by the time-divers of Query in their ceaseless efforts to maintain their precarious position on the top of time's totem pole.

A too-florid description, perhaps, but accurate for all the verbosity.

I am serious. Queryans are Immortal, but nature bal­anced it nicely since the genetic interlock required for fertilization and the time-diving ability kept births low—less than one per couple per millennium. And accidents did happen, time-diving ability or not.

Queryan time-divers ranged through time, and since time is space, so to speak, through space as well. As a precaution, all children were locator-tagged at birth, al­though the talent didn't usually develop until later, nor fully until puberty.

Only a few of us had innate navigational senses, and most Queryans never went far from Query. Back-timing on Query itself is out. The Laws of Time are inflexible. If you dive at all on Query, you dive planet-clear.

It all starts with the Test.

The Test, that trial that determines whether a Queryan gets advanced training, membership in the Temporal Guard, or whether he or she stays a planet-slider for a long, long life—that was my first turning point ...

On that morning that may never have been, the sky of Query was blue, with overtones of green that made the hills circling the city of Quest and the peaks behind those hills stand out in even sharper relief than the clearest holo could project.

The morning was cloudless, as so many mornings in Quest are. I had place-slid to the park surrounding the Square, breaking out of the undertime with the thought-chill that always ends a planet-slide or time-dive.

The Tower of Immortals stands in the center of the Square, surrounded solely by grass and the low fireflowers that flicker scarlet under the golden sun. The glowstone walks leading to the Tower are edged by the fireflowers.

Although four portals open from the Tower, Queryans not belonging to the Temporal Guard enter only through the South Portal.

The Tower soars from its rectangular base into a dome which climbs to a spire. The Tower is out-of-time phase, and the spire flares with the fires of a thousand suns cap­tured in the timeless and untouchable depths of the faceted slow-glass facing.

The oldest holos of the Tower from the Archives show no change, even though the mountains in the distance are a shade sharper and the hills a trace harsher. While Quest has altered in little particulars, the Tower of Immortals has not.

As I stared at the Tower on that morning that may not have been, none of this crossed my mind. Too young to note the changes in the vegetation in the park from century to century, and filled with the elation of becoming a Guard, I studied the Tower as a present I was about to receive.

If you see a good holo of the Tower, you can see how the edges blur. That's because the walls of the Tower proper, except for the rectangular wings, are partly out-of-time phase, which renders it indestructible, as well as un­changeable. That's unless the Temporal Guard were to pull it down stone by stone.

I stood and stared, convincing myself that, red hair and all, I would be the first of my family in eons, that is, since my grandfather, to pass the Test and join the Temporal Guard.

Wishing would not make it so, and clutching my illu­sions, I began to walk up the glowstones to the south portal. I could have slid right up to the entrance, but ceremony means much to all Queryans, particularly when a youngster elects to take the Test.

The portals were dark, but the interior of the Tower was bright with slow-glass panels, glittering and lit with the light of not only golden suns, but red suns, blue suns, orange suns, and white suns. Yet for all the light, as I entered the Tower, I felt a sense of coolness, quiet, and peace.

Not that I hadn't been there before. With my parents, tutors, and friends, I had walked all the public corridors, the meeting halls, and the Hall of Justice.

Before I realized it, I was at the archway to the Testing Hall in the west wing of the Tower.

A tall woman, with white-blond hair and deep black eyes, waited.

I had heard all the Guard participated in routine func­tions, and I concealed my surprise with a curt nod and a simple statement.

"Counselor Freyda."

Query made no distinction between civil and military, between compulsory and voluntary. The Tests determined who could join the Guard, and the Guard was the govern­ment. Ability determined position in the Guard, and the Counselors directed the Guards to implement the policies laid down by the Tribunes.

So I was surprised that Counselor Freyda, rumored to have been a close friend of my departed and possibly late grandfather, whom many had said I resembled, would be my examiner.

"Loki," she responded.

It was not a lack of warmth, I felt. Rather we are a laconic people, except perhaps for me. That's what comes from living until some accident in a planet-slide or a time fluke does you in.

When you contact the same people over centuries, tight speech and good manners prevail, and the Counselor had always been impeccably correct.

"You need not take the Test." Her eyes smiled, know­ing I would.

The formal statement was necessary. Some Queryans never took the Test, used their talents only to travel around Query.

Counselor Freyda had always been an attractive wom­an, though in my youthful exuberance, I thought all Queryan women were attractive, beauty being a matter of degree.

She rose from the simple straight-backed chair and led the way to the Travel Hall.

The Travel Hall is nothing more than a long, high, slow-glass lit room at the end of the West Wing of the Tower. A series of small equipment rooms flanks the Travel Hall. They open directly onto it through small arches. In practical terms, the Travel Hall is actually out­side the main time-protected walls of the Tower. So is the Infirmary. If you think about it, it makes sense.

Most Immortals can't planet-slide or time jump from within the out-of-time phase walls of the main Tower. That's why the Infirmary and the Travel Hall are "out­side."

Freyda conducted me into one of the equipment rooms, the Counselors', where the slow-glass wall panels were flanked with heavy gold and black hangings. From the drawers of a carved chest, she took four wristbands, slipped one over each forearm and handed the remaining pair to me.

I put them on, not having the faintest idea what they were for.

"The first part is simple. Go undertime as far as you can, or until I squeeze your arm. When I squeeze, relax, and I'll bring us back. Understand?"

I was all too aware we made a strange pair, she taller and in black, so simple and stark next to my red. If I suc­ceeded, I would wear black. No actual law, but those who serve or have served in the Temporal Guard wear black. My father said it has been so since before his great-grand­father's time.

Realizing I had been daydreaming, I nodded abruptly.

Freyda nodded back and grasped my left wrist. I ducked understream. Instead of latching onto the ground I just concentrated on trying to force myself full back-time, trying to turn the universe bright red like me. I could feel the redness flashing against the black of the time-paths.

Flashes of blue alternated with the sense of back-time red I was seeing, and I began to feel like I was dragging someone. Freyda was signaling. I went limp, blanked my mind, and let her carry us back to the Travel Hall.

"I doubt we need other tests." Her voice was level, but with a trace of strain, it seemed to me.

Was there any question? I'd been confident of passing for as long as I could remember. I'd been practicing fore-and back-timing on Query at least as long as I could read. Not that I could actually break out, given the Law of Non-Interference, but oh, how I had practiced.

Freyda looked carefully away from me toward the far end of the Hall.

"Custom, however, requires two other phases."

I tensed. What else was necessary?

"Next, slide off Query as you back-time."

"In any direction?"

"How do you determine, Loki?" The question was some­what pointed, perhaps because custom, again the unspoken, indicated that I should not have experimented with off-planet time-slides.

Embarrassed by my gaffe, I tried not to flush, and stammered, "I'm not sure ... there must be four. I mean, red and blue and gold and black, except that you could call gold and black, cold and hot. Somehow gold ought to be hot, but it's cold."

"So you've experimented on your own. I might have guessed. Have you followed a black line out-system and tried a break-out there?"

Was there a trace of a smile on her face?

"I've followed the lines a little way, but never tried a break-out."

That was certainly true. The Temporal Guard keeps its secrets. I wasn't about to break-out somewhere or some-when that wasn't favorable to my continued existence. I had followed the black time-paths both blue and red direc­tions just up to break-out on a number of worlds. At that time I had no way of knowing whether they were cold asteroids, moons, or planets. I thought I knew, but when you're experimenting on the edge of the forbidden, you hold back. At least, I did then.

"All right. We can skip phase two. Follow any black line back-time, red direction, as far or as near time as you want. Pick a favorable break-out. If it's dangerous and you have trouble, I'll recover you."

I picked the strongest time-path till it branched, took what seemed about a Queryan-sized trail to break-out.

Now, it's easy to say "followed," or "took," but unless you've been a time-diver, the words don't mean much. You can move your body, but the work is all inside your head.

When I first started time-diving, I actually tried to walk through the undertime nothingness. That's a bad habit, like mouthing words when you read. Unless you break the habit you'll never get any distance. You mentally "see" the paths and visualize the shade of red or blue. That's your acceleration back- or fore-time. Most divers can't slide or dive off the planet's surface except along the black force lines, the arrows of the stars.

Some of the older races speculated that the suns throw time rays, as well as other energies. They do, and the black arrows, paths, call them what you will, are what we follow. You have to know when to get off. If you follow the strongest path to the end, you'd wind up in the middle of some star. Not that you'd get that far. The distortion is so great even in the undertime that you'd have to force yourself beyond the mental abilities of all but the strongest Temporal Guards to approach close enough to injure yourself physically.

A knack, that's what it is.

A Guard can feel the "home" sense of the Tower of Immortals if he or she is near Query. Being both in and out of time, it acts like a beacon. Even if you lose your path you can home in on it.

With a quick shiver through the mind I popped out, catching a glimpse of stars in a frozen sky, eyeballs bugging out. Gasping for breath, I ducked back under­stream, thinking what a dunce I'd been.

That's it. Pick an easy path, stick your nose out without even a question as to whether there's any air out there to breathe.

I fired myself back to Query and the Travel Hall.

Freyda arrived a moment later.

"Like your grandfather. Rash. But stronger. With train­ing, you'll do."

That was my Test.

Sounds simple—but either you can or you can't.

After passing my Test with Counselor Freyda, I slid home to wait the days or seasons before I was called for training.

"I passed! I passed!" I shouted, plunging onto the porch where my parents were eating their midday meal.

"I didn't doubt you would for a moment," said my father, scarcely looking up from his fruit.

"I hope you'll be happy, dear," added my mother.

"But ... I mean ... not everyone ... " I couldn't un­derstand it. They were the ones who had told me the legends of the Guard.

All of them, from the terrible losses of the Frost Giant/Twilight Wars to the heroic deeds of Odinthor, the Trium­virate, my grandfather Ragnorak—all the sacrifices made by the Guard to restore Query to the glory that had preceded the devastation of the Frost Giants.

I'd gone to sleep so many nights as a child looking up at my father's shining gold hair, listening to him tell about the hardships that his father Ragnorak had endured on mission after mission for the Temporal Guard.

"You don't seem particularly pleased," I charged.

"If that's what you really want, dear," answered my mother, "we're both happy for you." She smiled so faintly it wasn't a smile and turned back to her lunch, a wild salad she'd gathered from the woods behind the house.

Even my father didn't meet my eyes after the first few instants. He picked at his fruit silently.

I thought about sliding out into the mountains to be alone, but what difference did it make? I was apparently alone even at home.

My room was on the second level at the back, overlook­ing the small gorge which separated the meadow where the house stood from the woods covering the hills. In the distance on a fair day, I could sometimes see the heights of the western Bardwall over the evergreens.

I slumped into the hammock chair on the shady side of my small balcony and stared at the trees.

There was a tap at the door. Doors weren't really necessary, but were there as a matter of custom and courtesy. Once when I was about ten, I guess, my door stayed locked for a month. It didn't seem to matter. That was before I realized my parents could slide around it if they wanted to.

"Come in," I called, knowing from the sharpness of the knock it was Dad.

He opened the door quietly, came out, and sat in the high-backed stool closest to the hammock chair.

"You don't understand, Loki, and you're confused." He waved me to silence and went on. "How could your father, the son of the great Ragnorak, hero and Guard, be so casual about your ability and your decision to join the Guard? I can tell from your face. You're about to say I couldn't make it, didn't pass my Test."

He smiled gently. "That's not quite true. I never even tried to take the Test. Nor did your mother. She's the great-granddaughter of Sammis Olon. I suspect, looking at you, we could have passed. That wasn't the question. My question was: What's the Guard for?"

What was Dad diving at? And why had he chickened out of taking his Test? Who was Sammis Olon?

"To protect us," I answered automatically.

"From what? Nobody's seen a Frost Giant in over a million years." His voice never lifted.

"That doesn't mean there aren't any. And what about the rest of the universe?" He just didn't seem to under­stand.

"What about it? There's no danger in it, particularly to you."

I couldn't understand him. "Then why did you tell me all those stories about the Guard? They were true, weren't they? Weren't they?"

"Yes, Loki, they were true. My father, your grandfather, destroyed promising civilizations, changed history on a dozen planets that were no real threat because of a mil­lion-year-old fear. When I told you those stories, I thought you would understand the Guard is a grubby and unneces­sary business. I tried to portray the dangers, the horrors, and the arbitrary nature of meddling with Time and the lives of innocents."

"Innocents? What about the time the soldiers of the Anarchate blew off his wrist?" I remembered that one vividly. "Or the time he stopped the Perrsions from using a planet-buster on Kaldir? Or—"

"Everything I told you was true," he interrupted, "or what my father told me. Lying wasn't one of his many vices."

"You were jealous of your own father! That's it!" I was seething.

He backed away from me with a strange look in his eyes.

"That's enough, Loki," he said calmly, almost gently. "I don't think we have much more to talk about. Your mother wanted me to ask about your decision once more. Passing your Test doesn't mean you have to join the Guard, but I can see that your mind is made up."

He held up his hand to stop my objections and con­tinued. "The entire nature of the Guard is subjective. Your mother and I have tried to become as self-sufficient as pos­sible here. We built the house with our own hands, harvest what we can from the lands and the woods. In the Guard you'll find machines to supply everything ... "

He went on and on and on, telling me over and over, way after way that the Guard was wrong in this, wrong in that. And he'd never been in the Guard. I wondered if he hated his father for being such a hero. Obviously I wasn't going to have that problem.

I listened and didn't try to say a word until he finished.

"Thank you, Dad. Is there anything around here that needs to be done?"

He looked at me as if I'd climbed out from under a rock.

"You really don't understand, do you?" He flexed his forearms, ridged with the muscles developed from his years of manual self-sufficiency, and kept staring.

What was there to understand? For some strange reason, he was giving the Guard a trial and judging it guilty with­out any firsthand experience.

We sat there for maybe twenty units, neither of us want­ing to say anything. An odd picture—a young man and a youth almost a man, yet one was father, one son. On Query you can't tell age by physical appearances.

Finally, Dad slipped off the stool, brushed his longish hair back off his forehead, and walked back into the house.

"You're welcome here as long as you want to stay, son." And damn it, he sounded like he meant it.

I kept watching the trees, as if I could see them grow or something. They didn't. Only thing that grew was their shadows.

The first few days of summer were like that. I couldn't take the sitting. Thought about Dad's comments on the Guard, the harsh conditions, the struggles, and I got scared. Just a little.

Why should I have been scared? I didn't know, but I Started in with the ax and split a winter's worth of wood in a ten-day.

Next came the running. If the Guard wanted toughness, I intended to be ready. I've got heavy thighs and short legs. Do you know what running over sandy hills is like with small feet and short legs?

I tried to chase down flying gophers. Never caught one, but within a ten-day I was getting pretty close before they disappeared into their sand holes.

At first, the temptation to cheat on the running, to slide a bit ahead undertime, was appealing, but I figured that wouldn't help my conditioning much. Besides, I could al­ready slide from rock tip to rock tip without losing my balance.

Once when I was sprinting back across the meadow to the house, I caught a glimpse of Dad watching through the railings. I don't think he knew I saw him and the ex­pression on his face—pride mixed with something else, confusion, sadness, I don't know.

Through all the quiet meals we shared those long ten-days, I knew they didn't understand, couldn't understand.

One morning a Guard trainee in black arrived with a formal invitation from the Tribunes for me to begin training.

Along with the invitation was a short list of what I was to bring with the notation that nothing else was required.

That made packing pretty easy.

III

Ten of us were ushered into a small Tower room with comfortable stools, a podium, and a wall screen.

Six young women, four young men, girls and boys real­ly, we sat and waited. None of us knew each other, and with the reticence common to Query, no one said anything.

I couldn't stand it.

"I'm Loki." I glared at the tall girl. She had her black hair cut short, and, surprisingly, it suited her.

...