Chapter #15Stories of Second Ousiarchs by: Seuzz   You're just stepping onto the porch when the light goes on and the front door opens. At first you can only make out a silhouette in the doorway, then --
"John!" you exclaim. "Hey, this is a nice surprise!"
John Reilly beams, his ruddy complexion turning rosier under his sandy hair. "Will, my boy!" He pumps your hand enthusiastically as he pulls you inside. "At least, I assume that's you behind the brambles."
You scratch bashfully at your thick beard. "Blending in with the locals. There's a great little bar downtown, but it's kind of a rough crowd. What are you doing in Olympia? Charles didn't say anything -- "
Reilly laughs. "You know how he likes surprises. I came to see you, actually. Got any stories for me?" His eyes twinkle.
"Nah. You'd think an archaeological dig in Guatemala would turn up something, but--"
"No Mayan mummies?" he cries, sounding crestfallen. "No chariot of the gods buried in an extinct volcano?"
"No. Just an ordinary dig. Expedition leader was only trying to get away from his wife for a few months."
Reilly shakes his head. "Pity the Second World War started before Himmler's boys could make it out to Mesoamerica. Say what you will about the Ahnenerbe, but they had a gift for turning things up."
"Is that you, kiddo?" a voice calls from the back.
"Yes sir!"
John cocks an eyebrow. "It's 'kiddo' now, huh? You're moving up in the ranks."
You blush with pleasure and pride -- probably an odd look on the face of the forty-year-old mountain man you're pretending to be. "I should change," you say. "Charles likes my real face." Reilly laughs as you shift imago.
"There you are," Charles says as he comes out from the bedrooms. "I was wondering if you were going to come home tonight." He chucks you lightly on the arm, and beckons you and Reilly into his parlor.
It's a tiny thing, with a shabby sofa and easy chair, and walls lined with shelves laden with little glass and tin knick-knacks. An ancient console TV sits in the corner; the sound is off, and the picture is showing a baseball game, but Charles switches it off.
"First of all, I'm sorry for putting you off a night," Charles says. "I wanted John here, but it took him an extra day to turn loose. I thought he could add an extra dimension to our discussion."
You nod patiently but expectantly. This meeting is supposed to be about your missing ousiarch and what to do about it, and it actually worries you a little that John is here. You like him immensely, but you don't see what he has to do with it, and can't help feeling that maybe there's a deeper problem that no one has told you about.
Charles seems to have read your thoughts, for he puts a reassuring hand on your knee. "Nash's memo was nice and clear. I won't mislead you, Will, it's an odd situation, though easy enough to resolve. You're a Stellae, and your body wants to have a second ousiarch. Getting you one is just a matter of meditating. We could probably get it done tonight, even."
"That soon?" you gasp.
"But you probably don't want it that soon. You'll want to think about who you choose. Because there won't be any going back."
"I understand, sir. I have thought about it quite a bit, but it's hard to get a grip on it."
"Why's that?"
"Well, I understand the theory behind each ousiarch, at least in a rough way. I know what each one is like, and the kind of prodigies they bestow."
"But?" Charles prompts.
"But it's not just a matter of adding new features onto me, sir, is it? I'm also a Sulvan, and my gifts would reflect a blending of two ousiarchs. Right?"
"Also a blending with your native personality," Charles says.
"That too. So, theory by itself isn't going to tell me everything, is it?"
Reilly laughs. "What's it like to be a bat?" he says. You and Charles glance at him; you're baffled, but Charles of course seems to know just what he means. "What's it like to be a bat?" Reilly repeats. "It's one thing to understand the theory of echolocation. But what would it be like to see the world through echolocation? So you understand, maybe, what it would be like to combine Sulva's influence with Arbol's. But what would it be like to be under their joint influence?"
"That's really what you want to know, isn't it, son?" Charles says. You note the reappearance of "son" in place of "kiddo," but it doesn't bother you; you really are like a child being asked what he wants to be when he grows up. "That's why I asked John to join us. I think he can help with that."
"How?"
"You know the theory of the multiverse?" Reilly asks. He continues when you don't reply. "It's the idea that there isn't a single universe, not like the spatio-temporal one we inhabit. Reality actually consists of all possible universes, containing all possible combinations of all possible facts. Most of them are empty or uninhabitable, because there are lots of ways of realizing the various cosmological variables -- " He jumps a little as Charles nudges him. "For our purposes, though, there are only nine. Nine ways of combining Sulva with the others, in a way consistent with your present life."
"I'm not sure I follow."
"You were in Oswego a few months ago," Charles says. "A successful mission, even with only one ousiarch to guide you. But what would it have been like if you'd had Sulva and Arbol as ousiarchs?"
"I don't know," you confess. "I don't know what would have happened."
"That's what we're going to try to show you," Charles says.
"Chuck thinks that, with my particular talents -- " Reilly allows himself to look a little puckish. "A little meditation exercise would show you what would have happened, and what it would have felt like. You know me, and the kinds of things I like to write. 'What if Gandalf had taught at Hogwarts?' 'What if Edgar Alan Poe had been president during the Civil War?' 'What if Franz Kafka had written The Chronicles of Narnia?" He shrugs. "What if Will Prescott had Sulva and Arbol as his ousiarchs?"
Goosebumps run up your back: not of fear, but of excitement. "So you can show me what that business in Owego would have been like if--"
"Maybe not Oswego in all cases," Reilly says. "With some of those combinations, you might not even have gone to Oswego. But I think I can show you some near correlates in all cases."
It sounds exactly like the kind of thing you need, and you enthusiastically agree to the experiment.
"Excellent! We'll set it up after supper," Charles says. "I'll take you boys out to a steakhouse, my treat." He brushes his beard meaningfully. "Wanna get changed, kiddo? Fit it in a little better?"
* * * * *
You're used to meditating alone, but the arrangement Reilly sets up that night looks more like a séance: the dark dining nook, with only a single candle for illumination, with you and he and Charles sitting in a circle around the table, palms down, with thumbs and pinkies touching. "Spirits of other worlds," Reilly chuckles when you make the observation aloud. "You should guide the first one, Will. Show us Oswego, and what actually happened there. I'll meditate on it tomorrow morning, and tomorrow night I'll show you a first possibility."
You close your eyes, clear your mind, and concentrate. A great void opens up around you. For a moment you feel lost, but the Moon appears beneath you; you seem to be hovering just above its surface. You raise your eyes.
Before you is a magnificent conjunction: Mercury, Venus and Jupiter in a line above the Sun. That would be your colleagues showing themselves.
You don't hear voices, but you feel the gentle prodding: Oswego.
* * * * *
The scene fades, but the silence is filled by another noise: a clickety-clackety chatter. You feel yourself swaying slightly. You open your eyes.
You're on a train, and briefly you are puzzled. This isn't Olympia, and it isn't Oswego. Where--?
You grunt slightly. It's the train between London and Glasgow. You've been dreaming about the past, you vaguely realize. You close your eyes, and the candle on the table on Olympia reappears. You're still dreaming. Or are you meditating? The boundary between the two states is often fluid, and briefly you wonder if you are on a train remembering the past, or meditating with your colleagues and imagining a distant future.
Choices not taken. You are carrying within you the vivid memories of another Will Prescott, one who made a different choice many years ago in a different place, and who brought them to you. Many years ago, in this world, you had the chance to make a different choices, to have taken some ousiarch other than Malacandra as your second. You sigh deeply but gently, and drift more firmly back into reminiscence. It's been a long time since you've thought of the visions that Reilly showed you during that week-long visit to Olympia ...
To wake from this reverie: "The Boy from Before Everything, Part 2"   You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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