?2018?
The sun rose hours earlier than it should have, considering the time of the year, and in the opinions of certain life-forms currently making their homes on the rocks surrounding it. Only two sentient beings on the third rock surrounding the star Sol—known to its inhabitants as Earth—could see the significance of such a minute disruption of the realm’s natural chronological order and had any ability to stop it. One was an incomprehensibly ancient being, whose agenda could often seem anomalous to anyone outside of his own mind. The other was a native of the planet, so far blissfully unaware of the role he was to play in the fate of the infinite multiverse; he was at rest now and would return when his times came. Both were people out of time and out of place, in their own ways.
The first, or rather the last of the First, was something else entirely, a visitor to the world of humankind. A lost visitor, at that, as he was dumped on his backside out of a swirling black and violet anomaly that reeked of some acidic substance he couldn’t place, not long before the early sunrise when the grim grey and pale blue of the daytime sky was just beginning to blend with the inky darkness of the night. The anomaly promptly stitched itself shut behind him and vanished.
Well, that was fun, the stranger thought. Would have liked to have found out where that thing came from, but I am certain that smell was a sensory trace coming from it. A powerful one, if it can reach across worlds. His delicately pointed ears, the left of which was bent in an obtuse angle, wiggled of their own accord in an illustration of his anxiety. Any lingering sensory trace would almost definitely mean that there was someone weaving some sort of sorcery at the other end.
L’æon, for that was the forename of Earth’s latest guest, dusted himself off and rose to his feet. He struggled to recall the last time he encountered a true magical practitioner other than himself. To his knowledge, that was the last time any true magical practitioner other than himself existed. After all, one couldn’t very well count the sort of knockoff evocations, low-grade psychic trickery, and filthy blood rituals performed by some in lower realms as proper magic. Such misguided foolishness was a mockery of the arcane artistry once performed by the Æ’gémínë, the fabled First People of the Lost World. Throughout his long travels, he encountered many of these poor people and considered it his responsibility to stop them before they hurt themselves or others; he had never encountered one who could wield the sort of power they once did.
But if L’æon was truly the last of the First, then who could have possibly left such a strong trace? The question made his brain itch, and he knew there was incorrectness afoot for him to remedy.
L’æon strolled across dark, icy-slick, and cracked pavement past several short log buildings, grouped together at the foot of several more tall, snowy hills. The streets were all but deserted, with a few locals groggily sticking hoses into the sides of their bulky vehicles, blurring the windows in front of them with steaming breath. In the dim yellow light of the few active streetlamps, their minds didn’t register the approach of a gently glowing, white-suited oddity, abnormally pale even by the standards of the coldest, darkest part of winter.
Oh, that seems familiar. I must have been to this planet before, though the name escapes me. What do the people here call those big ugly metal beasts of theirs again? L’æon thought to himself, his left eyebrow raised and mouth scrunched up under his thin, slightly pointy nose.
While he focused on finding the answer somewhere in his mind, the stranger failed to notice as his legs plunged into a deep snow drift, drenching and darkening the pants of his white suit up to the knees. His nerves registered nothing more than a mild chill, so he pulled his silver-and-gold phoenix feather cape tighter around his neck and shoulders and felt its perpetual warmth sink into his abnormally tall, thin frame.
A local in a grey wool cap and insulated brown overalls with a burning stick of foul-smelling herbs sticking out from in between his teeth spotted L’æon staring in his direction from a couple of metres away. He shifted from leaning to his left against the device to which the hose in his hand was attached, now leaning to his right against the flatbed of the tall, black vehicle.
L’æon sniffed the air as the pungent smoke from the stick wafted toward him.
A vile stench, of that there is no doubt. Though not, I think, the potent sour one which drew me here, L’æon made a mental note, though his gaze remained on the vehicle.
“Like my truck, bud?” the man called out to the stranger, reflexively fumbling with a button on a remote device in his pocket with his free hand to unlock the door in order to get away.
In the same instant that the locks clicked, L’æon looked with wide, golden eyes from the vehicle to its owner.
“Truck! That was the word. Thank you, friend,” L’æon said with an embarrassed chuckle, tapping his temple with the tips of two of his abnormally long fingers.
The man pulled the hose from his truck and returned it to its place, then looked up and down at the odd newcomer who was still apparently unaware that he was knee-deep in fresh snow, and that he wasn’t at all dressed for the occasion.
“That’s a real good way to get frostbite. Don’t you think you ought to head inside and get warm, maybe call for a lift home?” The driver jabbed his extended thumb toward the establishment behind him.
L’æon glanced down at his damp legs, finally registering some of the chill. In a misguided attempt to normalise himself to the driver, he pulled his cape tightly around himself once more and rubbed his shoulders. He leapt back onto the icy road and steadily approached his new acquaintance, a disarming grin plastered across his face that was intended to be friendly but gave the driver the impression that this dimly glowing weirdo might lunge for his neck.
The driver felt a chill run up his back that had nothing to do with the weather.
“Oh yes, it is quite cold in this place, this, urm… Where am I, exactly?” L’æon asked diffidently. He looked around at the frozen terrain, with the right side of the pavement dominated by rocky hills and green-needled trees while an icy, glittering body of water stretched from the base of the cliff the road that led all the way to the horizon.
“You’re in Girdwood, Alaska, boss. That’s the Turnagain Arm behind you. I’ve never heard an accent like yours. Are you from around here?” the driver said as he took a cautious step back away from the pale oddity.
[I feel like I remember this place…]
“Hmm?” L’æon asked with a glance at the sky as his attention was diverted. He was certain he had heard the echo of an unseen person speaking, but the memory was dissolving with every passing second. As his mind skated over the distraction for him, the stranger nodded thoughtfully, doing his best to give the impression that the concerned driver’s words meant something to him.
“Girdwoodalaska, is that the name of the planet? I assume ‘arm’ means this is one of the spiral galaxies?” L’æon asked seriously. He seemed to feel as though this was a perfectly normal line of questioning, and the increasingly bewildered man he was asking disagreed wholeheartedly.
“Planet? Galaxies? Sounds like you’ve had a few too many, pal,” the driver grunted through a scowl. “Let’s get you inside, get some coffee in you, and figure out where on Earth you’re supposed to be.” He put a hand on L’æon’s shoulder, who twitched involuntarily at the unfamiliar contact but then followed the man through the building’s heavy glass-and-metal doors.
Earth, yes, I do recall this world, L’æon thought to himself, relieved that one of his ever-expanding lists of questions had been answered. His relief was short-lived, however, as an unsettling notion dawned on him once his thoughts connected.
Wait… Earth? This world is nowhere near the right part of its evolution to harness cosmic power. That cannot be possible… L’æon realised as his pulse sped up. I must find whoever left that foul-smelling sensory trace and put an end to their recklessness at once. From a higher altitude, my senses would likely be a bit sharper, he noted with a glance over his shoulder at the snow-capped trees dotting the hills outside.
The sound of a bell rang out as they entered the shop. The visitor looked in awe at the vividly colourful array of wares he had never seen before, lining numerous shelves from wall to wall in the small, square room. Within seconds, the harsh scent of chemical disinfectants stung his nose and eyes.
Also, not quite the odour I am searching for, but still rather unpleasant, L’æon observed, cupping his abnormally long fingers over the lower half of his face for protection, lifting his arm away from the guiding hand of his new acquaintance.
A grizzled old man with a bushy grey beard in a thick, hooded sweatshirt that obscured a portion of the plastic name-badge clipped to his chest so it only read ‘Rog’ lounged in a metal folding chair behind a porcelain-topped counter near the entrance. He appeared to be drifting off to sleep while watching a small, black box with an outwardly curved, blurry glass screen.
“… expect a bit of sunshine later on bzzz morning, followed bzzz another round of snow showerzzz over Anchoragezzz lunchtime, and don’t forget to keep your eyezzz on the sky for thizzz weekend’s blood moon…” a tiny man in a suit said from behind the glass as the doorbell nearly startled the bearded shopkeeper out of his seat.
“Mornin’. How can I help you?” the shopkeeper said in a monotone once he collected his wits and rose to his feet.
After barely two clicks from the heels of his shoes on the shining tiles of the establishment, L’æon waved the fingers of his left hand as it hung down by his side.
“Ænæ’vös,” he hummed under his breath, so the other two couldn’t hear him. For the span of a single heartbeat, he felt as though something pinched his spine and yanked backward.
“Hey there, mornin’,” the driver said with a short nod, pointing a thumb back behind him. “This fella here seems to be lost after a wild night out. Any chance he could borrow a phone?”
“Who?” the shopkeeper asked, shooting an impatient glower at the empty doorway behind the driver. The latter stared at the spot where the stranger had just stood, mouth agape and heart racing faster than his morning coffee could ever have made it go.
Outside, L’æon was already dragging his legs through thick, crunchy snow as he climbed the tallest hill he could find, and the store he had just left now looked to be a few centimetres tall from his view. On the way, he sniffed the air once, twice, and a third time for certainty. Through the chill, he detected a faint sour stench coming from straight ahead, identical to the one that had piqued his curiosity and led him through the swirling vortex to this place.
“North, then,” L’æon said absently. “Sálvë. Been a while since I went north, I think.” At the hill’s crest, he spotted a bushy spruce tree so tall he had to crane his neck uncomfortably backward to see the top.
“Hmm… This ought to do,” L’æon said as he got a firm grip on two strong, rough branches above his head and began to hoist himself upward. His spindly arms burned from the effort; he couldn’t recall how long it had been since he had climbed the frosty-leaved dendra back home. As his muscles continued their mission almost unconsciously, his mind drifted into hazy memories so potent he was beginning to hear the playful harmonies of pan-flutes and faerie chattering in the distance before his ancient heart grew heavy with an ache stronger than any in his limbs.
By the time L’æon shook his mind back into the present, he had reached the top of the conical tree. The air was noticeably colder at his altitude, but his phoenix feather cape continued to do its job, making it significantly easier to ignore his frigid suit now that it was soaked through from the journey up the tree. It was then that he spotted the local yellow star, ascending to the heavens as if chased by something below the horizon. He squinted at it for several seconds, his head tilted to the left, mouth slightly ajar.
“This time nonsense is rather tricky to keep track of. Why do these people even bother, honestly? The small box-man said that was not meant to happen for hours yet…” L’æon paused, lost in thought. He slowly lifted his right hand to his face, gently scratching his temple. There had to be some explanation in this weird universe.
“Well, perhaps… Zätém húlsömn,”
As L’æon chirped the phrase, he waved his left hand in a tight circle. A holographic image of an analog clock appeared in the air in front of him, showing 7:59 AM. The seconds hand ticked three times before jerking backward, and then the clock turned to fuzz like the glass screen in the store. The shape warped and stretched into that of a Venn diagram, with the original on the left and a new twin to the right; he could almost not make out 10:15 AM on that one. The centre was a pitch-black void, slowly dragging the diagram into the darkness. A breeze wafted through the construct, filling L’æon’s nostrils with the scent of old books.
“That could indicate some sort of paradox… This is far worse than I imagined,” L’æon said as mental images of what he may have to do about it flashed behind his eyes, from which a single clear teardrop fell.
Watching the clocks and the accelerated dawn from his perch, L’æon felt a chilling dissonance in his bones. Chronomancy, the magic of time, was not his primary discipline, but he had dabbled in its complex workings enough to recognise it, respectfully avoid bothering with it, and dread anyone misusing it, no matter how pure their intentions. Spellcasters of a long-gone age were taught only the theories of such intricate and potentially overwhelming classes of sorcery, for fear of the simplest mistake leading to cataclysmic consequences across the many dimensions.
L’æon knew from his studies that a change as simple as a quick fast-forward would pass unnoticed for many in this realm, but it would only be the first domino falling on the path to widespread catastrophe. Focusing on such things, odd happenings in one’s peripheral vision that the subconscious didn’t want to notice, was akin to plucking a block from the bottom of the Jenga pile—you were likely to bring the whole structure down. It could take centuries of study and meditation for one to feel the pulse of the universe, and still overlook crucial details as he often did.
“I shudder to think the problem is anything other than simple ignorance, as they are blowing bubbles in reality itself,” the stranger told no one. He waved, and the mutated clock dissipated into a rainbow of sparks that danced away on the wind.
Unfortunately, as L’æon swatted the air with his hands, he unintentionally followed with the rest of his narrow body. This was a well-known tactical error among tree climbing enthusiasts, and if L’æon didn’t know why before, his sudden change of perspective from bird’s eye to worm’s eye certainly drove the lesson home. He groaned in a mixture of pain and frustration as he pushed himself to his feet.
“All that effort to climb it and for what?” the curious person grumbled to no one in particular. He swiped at his arms and chest to rid himself of stray pine needles and snow. Damp spots with specks of green dotted the fabric wrapped around him.
“To fall on my backside looking like a bloody Krylian hedgehog.” L’æon spun his head side to side, making sure no one was near to see his clumsy mishap. Some local wildlife shuffled among the plants, and he hoped he hadn’t disturbed anyone’s rest. When no one came forward to criticise, he licked his right index fingertip and held it in the air. The image of the diverging times was still unusually clear in his unreliable memory.
He patted himself clean a second time and happened to glance back at the tree he had vacated. Several branches had broken, victims of the glowing man’s fall to earth. He leaned forward, lowering his face parallel to the lowest arm of the tree.
L’æon sighed woefully. “Oh, äb,” he whispered. “That was rude of me.” He extended his left hand and delicately twitched the tips of each finger in order of length. He muttered, seeming to shake the air for a metre around him as he did, “Shínímä.”
The tree shook from the lowest branches to the top, each turning a much livelier green as splintered twigs stitched back together. Scratches on the bark faded away.
On the side of the highway below, the early daylight illuminated a broad green sign which read ‘Anchorage, 40 miles’. Hulking grey clouds followed the sun over the hills and trees, threatening to block its light with a fresh coating of snow as predicted, casting a wide shadow on the city indicated by the sign.
“North, then,” L’æon told himself gravely, descending down the hill. As he departed, a pleasantly warm, apple-scented breeze followed in his wake. The healed tree swayed its branches gently in an upward spiral as if to say goodbye.