A Balanced Prophecy

Anne Price sat back in her chair among the Inner Circle. Before that august body stood a boy, power practically radiating off him. He was stronger with the Spark than any of the novices and Adepts she'd seen in her long years as a Paladin. The boy had been found on some planet in the Far Reaches by a Ronin and brought before the Circle. The Ronin, one Twilya Borensz, was speaking.

"Surely you see what I see," she said calmly. It was best not to lose one's temper in Circle chambers, though Anne observed the effort she made. This one has been wandering the path of the Ronin too long, she thought. It's past time for her to start the Paladin's road.

The Ronin persisted. "You must know what every Ronin and Paladin I met on the journey here knows. This boy is one of the Five Prophecies."

"Which?" asked a member of the Circle. "The Instrument of Balance or The Indefensible Victim?" Only two of the Five involved individual people, the rest pertained to groups or events.

"The Instrument," Twilya said, as though it were obvious. Anne studied the Ronin's young charge. He was older than the average novice, but not by much. His eyes held wisdom far beyond him and Anne could see, even without reading his thoughts, that he knew how the Circle would react.

Indeed, it was Thella Dars, ancient matriarch of the Circle, who said, "Though this boy may be the Instrument, the Victim or neither, he is not to be trained. He is far to old to begin."

"He doesn't need to start at the beginning," Twilya said. "Give him the Adept's Test. I say he'll pass and then he doesn't have to take the novice classes. I would also say he could have only minimum Adept training before he was taken by a Paladin--"

"You say, " the matriarch looked at the young Ronin sternly. Twilya swallowed and said nothing.

"I will tutor him, brethren," Anne said with a smile. "Child of Prophecy or no, he is powerful and should be trained. And I agree with Ronin Borensz. I'll need to see his scores on the Adept Test, but he shouldn't need the full four years. He's already old enough, he has the power and has presumably demonstrated ability. A solid grounding in the Tenets is all he lacks."

Another member of the Circle glared at her. "Paladins do not train Adepts, they take Squires. Only Masters may train Adepts."

"I sit within the Inner Circle," Anne said. "That entitles me to certain rights of Mastery."

The matriarch raised an eyebrow. "You are new to this Circle, Paladin Price."

Anne nodded. "So I am. Therefore, if any respected elder can provide a compelling argument against training an obvious prodigy, I will gladly withdraw my tutor's petition."

There was silence. A telepathic conference ensued, followed by the matriarch speaking. "Your petition is accepted. It will be recorded that you are this boy's tutor."

Anne offered a slight bow.

Later, Anne and Twilya walked through the bustling corridors of the Magi sanctuary. Novices and Adepts went about their lessons and duties, while Magi from Ronin to Master walked its halls.

"Thank you, Anne," she said. "I knew you would see his potential. If you had seen him, on his planet..." she smiled. "I was surrounded by tigerhawks, bleeding out from a gash across my gut. I was barely able to render basic thought-forms, my concentration was shot. I poured all my will into making myself indestructible, hoping I'd be able to keep the shields up long enough, when that kid came diving in out of nowhere. He was a blur - a blur with the strength of ten. He took down the most vicious predatory hybrids in the galaxy with nothing but his body and a metal staff."

"So he performed what any new Squire fresh out of their Adept's colors could do. He used the Spark to enhance his own physical attributes."

Twilya smiled. "How easy was that for you to learn, during your Adept training?"

Anne grinned. "Not very, I'll admit."

"Well this boy taught himself how to do that, and more beside."

"And discipline? Was he teaching himself that, as well?"

She shook her head. "He's more driven than disciplined. Which is why his training is so important, and why I'm so glad he has you to--"

"Did you tell him about the Fell?"

She scoffed at this. "Enough so he knew who they were and what they did. I didn't focus on them much. So few remain, it's unlikely he'll ever meet any, let alone have to face one."

Anne nodded and moved ahead to talk with the boy.

They walked in silence for a while.

"Did Ronin Borensz tell you what she thinks you are?" Anne asked at last.

The boy nodded.

They walked a while, not speaking again. Anne studied the boy. Then, with a grin, she reached out for a handful of the universe and used its energy to build a floating geometric shape from solid light. "What's your name?" she asked.

"Brin," the boy said. "Brin Darkstar."

"Darkstar," Anne repeated. "That's a Far Reaches name."

Brin nodded again. "Grew up on a cargo ship, running the old merchant spaceways with my family. We come out of the Colonies, generations back, but I spent some time on the Capitol worlds." He watched the spinning shapes -for there were more of them now- a look of awe on his face. "Will I learn to do that?"

Anne smiled kindly. "Soon enough. I'm to train you."

"You are?"

"I am. But there is testing to be done yet to decide where I'm to begin."

"Testing?"

"Standard among the Magi, to determine placement within the Order." Anne waved the question aside. "But there is the matter of your Prophecy to discuss."

"So, you think I am..."

"The Instrument of Balance, yes."

"Well, that's good, isn't it? Ronin Borensz says it is." The thoughtforms danced and spun around him. He caught at them and grinned as they slipped through his fingers, grinned at the thought that the Paladin was making it happen, that someday he would make it happen. Maybe make other things happen.

"Balance is neither good nor evil," Anne said, her smile turning thoughtful. "That's really the whole point. My concern is how you’ll actually bring about this balance."

Brin looked quizzically over at the Paladin.

"You know the Fell, yes?"

"The Ronin told me. They use the Spark for evil, perverting the Magi way."

"Yes," Anne said, "that is the Fell, essentially. They have all the power of the Magi and none of the discipline, none of the control. They rose to power a thousand years ago, enslaved half the galaxy and slaughtered most of the other half. It took centuries to bring them down, but over those centuries we became so successful at hunting them, and cleaning up their collateral criminal activity, that the Magi have become the de facto law enforcement for most of the galaxy. Our numbers grow as the Fell diminish to nothing."

"But isn't that good?" Brin was confused. The thoughtforms pulsed and changed and moved slowly about his head.

"It is," Anne nodded. "I won't ever be truly happy until every last Fell is dead." She paused. "Which brings us back to the matter of the prophecy."

"I don't understand."

Anne stopped walking and turned to face Brin. "If you are to bring balance between the Magi and the Fell, then you're either going to make a great deal more of them or a great deal less of us." She favored the boy with a sympathetic smile. "I’m sorry Brin, but I'm afraid I find neither option terribly appealing."

"I don’t underst--hnk!" The Child of Prophecy's last words ended in a choked grunt as the brilliant shimmering shapes became deadly glittering spikes that drove simultaneously through Brin Darkstar's brain.

Three Masters of the Inner Circle approached, the matriarch among them. "What is this?" she demanded.

"A dead child, Masters."

"Why did you kill this boy, believed by many, including yourself, to be one of the Five Prophecies?"

"Masters," Anne bowed, spreading her hands in reverent supplication. "I humbly submit to you, that I only acted according to the will of the most venerated Prophets."

"The last of the Five Prophets rejoined the Spark over three thousand years ago," the matriarch said. "How do you presume to know their will?"

Still retaining her submissive posture, Anne smiled. "Most honored Masters, I would think it obvious," she said. "Balance between the Magi and the Fell would bring disaster upon our order, would it not?"

"While of course true, that is irrelevant," a Master scolded. "One does not seek to thwart a Prophecy. Would you do the same to the Indefensible Victim, were she found and brought before you?"

"As the Indefensible Victim is said to usher in the next age of barbarism, then yes, I would drive a spike through her brain as readily as I did this poor bastard." Anne was calm, standing and meeting the gaze of each Master in turn. "Truly, Masters, do you hold to dogma and ritual at the cost of all reason and sense? Can you not see the only logical course?" When she was met with silence, she turned and continued down the hall, throwing one final thought to her ancient brethren over her shoulder.

"What purpose should Prophecy serve," she said, "save to provide the means to thwart its outcome?"

The Broken Tomorrow of Josephine Sunday

Of course, Sunday wasn’t her real last name. People didn’t have days of the week for their last names, not real people.

But then, she wasn’t a real person any more, was she?

Josephine closed her eyes, willing her normal life - Josephine Watley’s normal life - to be there when she opened them. But no, it was just the same train station, the same bleached-out colors and insubstantial people. She flipped the hood of her ragged coat up over her head. It was starting to snow.

A few minutes later, the train pulled up. Josephine climbed the steps, turned right into a car, and sat against the window of a two-person seat. The car was nearly deserted, so she set her bag down next to her. The conductor approached.

“Ticket?”

She flashed her pass, and was putting it back in her bag when the conductor’s voice brought her up short.

“Hold it.”

She looked up.

“Let me see that.”

She handed up the pass.

The conductor scrutinized it. “Don’t normally see these stations on a pass.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, Tomorrow Station is a one-way trip. People usually buy single tickets for that one. And I didn’t think we even had service to Yesterday Station any more.”

She smiled. “I wanted my pass to be comprehensive.”

The conductor smiled back, returning the pass. “Where you headed?”

“Tomorrow Station is always where I’m headed, but I am unfortunately getting off long before then.”

“And where would that be?”

“I believe you're supposed to tell me.”

“Ah, right.” The conductor fumbled with a map, studying it. “ Let's see... ah. Here it is. You’ll want to get off on a Saturday afternoon in the spring of 1987.”

The train lurched and the conductor stumbled, then began stammering, looking quizzically at the map. “Um, what? No, I’m sorry. That’s ridiculous. You’ll want the West Idleston station. The one after next.”

“Thank you.”

“And I’m so sorry for that... um, whatever that was. I don’t even really remember...”

“Not at all.” Josephine smiled up.

“Must be one of those days.”

“It always is.”

The conductor walked on, and Josephine put her pass away, rummaging through her bag. She took out a small journal and began writing. She was finding it harder to put her thoughts on paper, but she forced herself to write at least two pages. She knew she would one day lose writing, just like she lost her proper name. Eventually, even Josephine would be gone and she’d just be Sunday, a living day of the week. After that she would become woven into spacetime itself, a barely sentient waveform of shifting probabilities.

Soon, the conductor announced West Idleston. Josephine put away her journal and zipped up her bag, slinging it over her shoulder as she left the train. Her phone rang and she answered it.

“Sunday.”

“Josephine, this is Calendar. Are you then?”

She looked around, had a good chuckle at some of the fashions on display, and said, “Spring. 1987. Feels like a Saturday.”

“Good. Now, where are you?”

“Town called West Idleston.”

“Perfect!” Josephine held her phone away from her ear. Calendar was still going on. “Dispatch got you on the right train for once. Okay, you want to get to a highway overpass about... three blocks from where you are.”

She started moving. “So how is visiting some overpass in 1987 going to help me stop being erased from existence?”

“Well, West Idleston was your grandfather’s home town, and you’re at the day after his junior prom,” Calendar said. “But, more importantly, it’s also the day he’s going to kill himself.”

Deliverance (a sermon)

In the old time under the Green Men, those vicious monsters of space, the last of Earth’s authority came together. The armies of the world were long since made rubble and corpses, human science a thing of legend, so the only avenue left those former kings and merchant princes was religion. Clergy from all faiths urged their people to join in prayer, a fervent appeal to their Higher Power to deliver them from the invaders. This global clergy, united for the first time in history in the face of this universal Other, poured over their texts and sacred books, seeking the means to call down that deliverance.

It was a Muslim cleric and a Wiccan high priestess who found the incantation, in a book buried deep beneath the Vatican; an incantation that would summon a holy warrior, one that would bring the great and terrible Wrath of the Divine. With the incantation they’d found, humanity could call down God’s Worst Bastard.

And when he came among the last humans, he was known as Pope Adam the Destroyer. His was a hunger of infinite measure, satisfied only by the souls of aliens. With each soul devoured, Pope Adam the Destroyer added one more mindless drone to his growing army. They swept across the globe, the remaining aliens fleeing before such a fate. When the last of the invaders had gone, humanity’s savior presented them with the God Factory, a vast industrial complex fueled by the souls he’d taken, worked by the bodies those souls had once inhabited. The God Factory made the machines that made everything the recovering human race could need, bringing about a paradise from their blasted and blighted Earth.

And so it is, in this, the year of the Destroyer 117, a century since our deliverer had left us, that we are recovered enough to think on vengeance. We go now to the God Factory to build new machines, sacred machines that only the Mechanics of the Holy Order can operate; machines to find the aliens’ homeworld and machines we can use to kill everything we see once we get there.

Blessed, blessed, thrice blessed are the warriors in the Destroyer’s armies, for theirs is the right and the power of the Divine.

Praise Be.

The Last Bastion

He floated out among the Transient Spaces, too exhausted to even rebuild his vessel. He reached out his hand, sparing energy he didn't have to rejuvenate a dying galaxy. Here at the very fringes of the Edge Zones, where the battle was waged, the physical realm was sparse and even more sparsely populated. A distant arm of the galaxy in God's hand contained the home of an ancient sentient species. They'd moved their galaxy here to observe the battle, knowing the slim chance of survival, but desperately needing to record the event. Their scanning instruments focused on the deity that had saved them and they offered up a hymn of thanks, engaging all sentient life in that galaxy to add their prayers, knowing what focused worship could do for a supreme being. That worship brought strength back to God's weary presence. He used that energy to send the galaxy far away, then fortify the barriers for the next attack.

Far off into infinity, across the great emptiness, darkness roiled and swelled. He had cast it out, so many eons ago, and so had been able to tame the universe and populate it with beings of his own creation. Now the dark had returned, threatening his universe with the devastation of pure chaos. Fortunately, God had seen the darkness coming when it was still thousands of millennia out and engineered a species designed to combat and nullify the dark. He'd stayed with them as long as he could, then, forced to confront the darkness directly, left his people to develop on their own, sending messengers with knowledge and technology just before he left.

It had been a couple thousand years since he'd activated the Savior protocol. Through a half-mortal proxy, new technology and abilities should have been granted to his little super-hominids beyond the simple tools and philosophies his first messengers had given. Over a few centuries, his proxy should have expanded their minds to hold the knowledge they'd need to make war on the dark, teaching them the illuminated language of God. Further instructions passed on during the Prophet cycle should have allowed them even greater understanding of the vast powers granted by the Savior protocol. He'd been broadcasting specific instructions relating to the coming war against the dark via sensitives over the centuries, and if his people had followed them, they would be prepared for the worst.

Then the last of God's barriers broke and the darkness invaded the universe in a great rushing wave. God raced ahead, outpacing the darkness by mere decades, arriving on Earth with less than a century until the darkness overwhelmed them. He stood mighty in the sky, his countenance spanning the horizon. In his own language, spoken first by the stars when they were young, God rallied his people to him.

After a pause just long enough to be unsettling, humanity looked up at God and said, "Huh?"