Shadows Out of Time

She reached into the cylinder and pulled out his slippery, spongy brain. Just three pounds of tissue, as he’d pointed out in the lecture hall a lifetime ago, and yet it housed everything that was Professor Vaughan. She tore it to pieces with her bare hands, throwing chunks of shredded gray matter across the floor until there was nothing left of it. She dumped the solution out of the cylinder, then bashed it and the rest of the equipment against the temple wall until they were mangled and unrecognizable. After that, she felt a lot better.

What she hadn’t told Professor Vaughan, what that horrible, selfish man didn’t deserve to know, was that she did understand the pattern of time. She’d understood it from the moment she discovered the watcher of Arneth-Zin was blind, deaf, and dumb. The truth was that there was no pattern. There were no reasons, no secret designs, no answers to the philosophical questions that plagued man and Mi-Go alike. It didn’t matter if you were a student or a professor, a victim or a perpetrator, if you lived your life with love or forgot the names of the people you stepped on as soon as you were done with them — in the end there was only entropy and decay, chaos and tragedy, as though the universe had nothing but disdain for the life that inhabited it. And in an ancient temple on a dead world where all the timelines converged, there was a lone sentry whose job, for reasons that were unknowable, was to stand witness as it all withered and died.

Emily climbed up onto the throne, took hold of the black shard, and watched the grid of time blink back to life. Every path had led her here, guided by that same pitiless universe, as if it had decided Arneth-Zin had been without a watcher long enough.

Why had she been chosen? Was there some kind of intelligence behind it, something beyond even the vast eternity playing out before her, or was she fooling herself into thinking there was any reason at all? Maybe she was nothing more than a leaf blown by random, feckless winds. Did it matter?

It was something she’d have an eternity to ponder.

Genghis at the Gate of Dreams TIM LEES

Under orders from the Great Khan, called Temujin, praise his name, they traveled many days, to a place where two tall boulders stood, the width of three supply carts separating them.

These, said the Khan, were the gateposts to the Land of Dreams. Here, his people would find wonders, gold and treasure of such fineness as to make the wealth of the material world seem like ordure in comparison.

His subjects listened eagerly, and, if any held a doubt, none voiced it, nor looked ought but joyous at his words.

This was not wholly to the good.

In times gone by, the Khan had welcomed argument, and valued contrary opinion. Once, his advisers had advised, his counselors had counseled, and his wise men shared their wisdom freely.

Alas, such times were long gone.

Now he brooded, looking old and fragile, and those close to him grew fearful as to what would happen next.

Yet having laid his plans, it was at this point that the great Khan hesitated. Abjuring to lead his people wholesale through the gateway, he camped instead upon the borders, so to speak, and sent two of his swiftest and most trusted warriors to scout beyond.

There was much popular interest as they galloped off, and plunged between the boulders with a flourish, like competitors at the racetrack. Initially, they were quite visible upon the grassy steppe beyond; but soon, as many later testified, it was as if a mist or fog came down around them, enveloping both men and mounts, although the land around remained in view.

Thus, the great Khan’s emissaries vanished from the common sight.

They rode long and hard. The land was hilly, wild and windswept. Stunted pines grew in the crevices and narrow valleys, and in the shelter of the great black rocks that outcropped on the hillcrests.

All seemed empty and devoid of life, whether human or animal. Nor did the sky yield so much as a single bird.

Presently, however, the riders came upon a child, sitting cross-legged beneath a grassy hillock. His head was shaved. He wore a thin, grey robe, yet seemed impervious to cold. Around him, painted on the ground, were three circles: one white, one red, one yellow. He sat within their heart.

The warriors immediately set to question him. Where were his people? What was his country? What kind of military power did it possess? What was their wealth? Who were their allies? What gods did they extol, if any?