Jigsaw World (27 page)

Charlie went on to explain to the four the
brief history of their timeline, and some measure of what it was
composed of. He said that all of the worlds of Man were born in the
same Big Bang. That was the time in which the universal constants
were set, and time began. He said that time, like gravitation, was
not a true force or dimension.

Time is the measure of events, separating
cause from effect. It is a string of static instants which are
associated with each action within our world. The past is a page
written in action, and cannot be revisited save in memory or in
travel through a wormhole, which cannot be constrained by any such
limitations. Gravitation is nothing but a deformation in the
space-time fabric, creating a space-time potential well for inertia
in the same way that one can create an electromagnetic potential
well.

All of the Worlds of Man are related,
descendants of that instant in time when a point in another
universe imploded, creating a space-time matrix where none existed
before. Every world where humans and humanoids can be found has
rules and laws that are favorable for human life. Each human that
lives in each of these worlds expects the world to be what they are
used to, and so they all contribute to the consensus of the common
reality.

Tom thought that all of these explanations
were worse than useless. Who cared that people in isolation broke
down any consensus reality that might exist? He wasn’t sure why
this purification ritual would be of any benefit in the process of
repairing the world. He had started to suspect that these mystic
types were using intrusive ritual requirements to satisfy their
voyeuristic curiosities.

“
So why is it that you Asgardian
types haven’t fixed this already?” Tom addressed Tyr and Heimdall.
“It seems like it is right up your alley.”

“
Because this is only one of an
infinite number of such problems in the worlds of Man.” Heimdall
said. “From here I can see hundreds of worldline problems, some
even worse than what you have here. If some of the inhabitants had
not begun to move on this one, we would not have become
involved.”

“
You got a couple of potential
Walkers, and some other Talents here that are worth saving.” Arpad
said as he gazed at Veritasia with fondness. “I must admit that I
have never met a double Souled person before either. I still don’t
quite know what to make of Markus.”

“
Don’t feel bad.” Tom said. “None
of us do. I think we should keep him around just in case we run
into a need for a soul donor.”

******

Heimdall was standing over Tom, where he was
waking in the messy bed, with Karla nestled sleepily at his side.
“Awaken.” Said the godling. No one should be that muscular this
late in the evening, Tom thought.

“
You will never be as good an
alarm clock as a wet dog’s tongue licking my face.” Tom grumped.
“Not that I want you to lick my face, Heimdall.” He kicked aside
the covers, and got out of bed. Karla grinned and dove under the
covers to hide her virtues.

“
Get yourselves some food and
drink, and make your final preparations for the Shriving. We are
only half an hour from the stroke of midnight.”

“
It will be a breeze.” Tom said.
“I will just confess to watching
a lot
of porn, and we
will be good. I don’t need to watch it anymore, when I can make it
with Karla here.”

Once Heimdall had vacated the room, Karla and
Tom emerged fully from the bed, where they had spent about an hour
of the evening taking part in that most relaxing of activities
before facing the others and having to spill their most intimate
secrets, if they could even figure out what they were. Tom figured
it had something to do with his being a secret murderer, but he
wasn’t quite sure just how.

Ten minutes later they were with the others in
the parlor. Markus and Vera seemed to be nervous as well, even
though Tom had no idea at all what either of them would have to
confess. Tyr was actually dressed up, wearing red leather armor
with iron plating, and with a silver stub on his right arm stump.
He wore his traditional broadsword at his back, and he carried his
gleaming spear of a mysterious silver metal.

Cernunnos was going to be the officiator at
this shriving, and the Seconds for each of the four would act as
witness. Arpad and Veritasia would be assistants to Cernunnos. The
Seer would open the way to the Place of Beginnings when Heimdall
sees the way, and the ceremony would be conducted at that place.
The Sorcerer, the Herald, Heimdall and Tyr would all act as
guardians while the shriving and the binding took place.

“
We are nearly ready to begin the
rite.” Cernunnos said. “Seer, stand ready to create the bridge.
Heimdall, stand ready to find the Place of Beginnings.” Each of
them nodded their readiness.

“
Begin.” Cernunnos said. The Seer
struck the butt of his staff against the floor, and the crystal in
its head flared into blue-white light as the dual hall doors swung
open. The light from the crystal arced into a lightning bolt aimed
at the hallway. Where the lightning crossed the threshold, it begat
a spiral rotation of energies that now could be seen as the throat
of a wormhole. The eyes of Heimdall glowed gold in the light of the
hallway.

“
The gate shall
reach across space and across time to find the place of the first
variance, the Place of Beginnings.”
Cernunnos
explained.
“Heimdall, do
you See the Place?”

“
It is There.” Heimdall points.
Tom could not see what he pointed at, but Cernunnos nodded.
“Seventy-Three years in the past, but right there!”

The crystal in the staff glowed brighter yet,
and it ran the spectrum of colors from deepest red to brightest
blue. As it did this, a scene began to resolve itself at the center
of the wormhole. In the midst of a change mist they could see a
single tree, standing in a boggy looking place surrounded by the
mists, light streaming through its branches from overhead. If a
full moon was hidden behind those mists, it might give such a
light.

“
We see before us the Place of
Beginnings.” Cernunnos said. “It is time to go to that place, and
begin the Shriving and the Binding.”

The Seer raised his staff and led the way into
the wormhole. There was an instant sensation of motion, and then
they had crossed some sort of threshold, and they were in front of
the tree. It was some sort of an ironwood tree, squat and hard and
planted firmly in the swampy land. Tom looked around himself, and
saw that all of the party was there.

“
How did the Sage get out of
this?” Tom asked. “I thought that he was supposed to be all in on
this.”

“
He shacked up with a lady off in
Shadow.” Charlie explained. “If it is a choice between saving the
world and sex, the Sage will go for sex every time.”

Typical, Tom thought. Leave it to the heavy
lifters to clean up the mess. He was just surprised that it was a
girl that the Sage was going for. It could have as easily been a
guy or a dwarf, or a male or female of some other
species.

“
We are gathered
here to purify and bind these Pilgrims by confession and by vow to
the task of healing the world.” Cernunnos intoned. “Come forth
Vera, bring your second Charlie and be
confessed
.”

Vera shuffled up uncertainly to the front and
in front of Cernunnos. Charlie followed her up, grinning broadly at
the group. Tom could see in Vera’s eyes that she still had no idea
what to say in her confession. What none of the Pilgrim had taken
into account was that the place they were in was a place that lived
and breathed a magical connection to everything.

As Vera fished for the words to say, the air
around her shimmered and a holograph-like visual appeared of her
desperately hiding and hunting the demon-possessed in her home
town. It showed the fear and the horror and the sense of loss that
she was feeling as people that she had known were taken, and the
only way she could protect herself or help them was by ending their
lives in a most horrible fashion.

“
It felt like a violation” She
said. “It was like ripping and being ripped, whoever is standing
last wins, but the victory is empty, when everything you fight for
is gone.”

The scene changed, and for a moment, they saw
her as a little girl, being pawed at by a drunken father. They see
her fight back, and get beaten. They see him pass out, and watched
her little form as she stared down at him, before she brought out
the steak knife that she found in the kitchen, and plunged it into
his throat. She sawed around in there until the blood flowed
fast.

Next, they saw that her mother was gone, and
she was forced to leave to be the little girl of strangers. All
that she loved was gone. The group saw that the story of Vera’s
life was to struggle to survive and to save the things and people
she loved, only to lose them in the struggle.

Tears were streaming down Vera’s face as the
vision ended, and it must have been raining lightly, as Tom noticed
a bit of moisture around the eyes of the rest of the group as well.
Cernunnos motioned her back to the rear of the assembly, and
motioned Markus forward. Able to follow directions, Vera moved back
as Markus shuffled forward.

“
Come forth, Markus, with your
Second the Sorcerer of Hait.” Cernunnos said. “It is your time to
be confessed.” From the look on Markus’s face, the last thing he
wanted to do was to volunteer for confessional. Tom saw the shadow
that was the preferred form of the Sorcerer follow him to the
front.

As Markus took his position before Cernunnos,
the air around him shimmered, and flickered, and flashes of events
that must have come from a thousand alternate worlds lived their
microsecond lifetimes. Finally, the vision stabilized to show a
tall blonde haired man strolling through a world of high
skyscrapers and hover trains, a place both familiar and alien to
all that were gathered there. There was a touch of emotion conveyed
by the holograph, a hint of
lostness
that no amount of familiarity in the
world about him could ever quite take away.

Next, there was a moment of darkness, a time
of oblivion, and then he is a dark haired man in another world
entirely, a world where demonic entities have taken many bodies
around him, and somehow he has done the same, but he is sharing his
with the original person.

In all of this, he knows that he is even
further lost, forever alone and unable to find his way home. Now he
is not sure who he is as well. Is he the original wearer of this
body, just with some otherworldly memories, or is he the original
Markus wearing a different body? In all of these worlds, does he
even really exist at all?

Just as the world answered Vera with an answer
not said, so did the world pose an answer to the question of ‘Do I
exist’ with an irrefutable ‘Does it matter?’ Markus found to his
surprise that the question of existence didn’t matter, as long as
he was able to experience. The vision ended, and Markus felt a
lifting of a self-imposed burden from his mind.

Markus and the Sorcerer moved back to the back
of the group without prompting. Tom had time to wonder what the use
was of the ‘seconds’, if they had nothing to do in this little get
together. Then the two were back in the crowd, and it was now time
for Tom to bare his soul.

“
Come forth, Tom, with your Second
Tyr of Asgard.” Cernunnos said. “It is your time to be confessed.”
Tom and Tyr broke through the crowd, and moved forward to stand
before Cernunnos.

Tom noticed that the others, even the
nonparticipants like Veritasia, Arpad and the Herald, all leaned
forward just that extra little bit that suggested that they had a
bit of unsatisfied curiosity about Tom that they hoped to dispel.
Tyr at least seemed properly supportive in this endeavor, but then,
if a god of war can’t understand a little murder addiction, who
could?

The air around Tom started to sparkle, and
like before, a thousand flashes of other places and other times
appeared and disappeared in the air around him. When at last the
vision settled on its first significant scene, it was the same one
that Tom had seen in his dreams a thousand times before. Beneath a
full moon, a battlefield lies bloody among the trees of an olive
grove. The victors drink and smoke various herbs, and the
vanquished are corpses, bleeding beneath the moon.

Tom looks about him, and he sees his fellow
victorious, included are the ones who fought for money, and the
ones who feed on the blood. There is Lord Yama, and Kali was here
earlier. Death’s companion is always destruction, and so must Seti
and Shiva always have a presence in these places.

He looks about and he sees the Berserkers, and
he knows that he is not among their number, but the outrage he
carries is cousin to their rages. He looks about him and sees the
masters of the Slaughter, but he knows that the lives he takes
exacts a greater cost to him than to those. He sees the masters of
destruction, but he knows that he would be balanced with the
Creators, and so he is not of their number.