MARIQ

A short story by Mathew Peter Buy

Mariq stood alone amongst the broken ruins of the Sedda, a wreck of so much heaped up orange rubble on a sea of emerald grass. Above, the sky was purple, studded with a thousand silver stars. A warm breeze blew lazily across the open plain, rustling through the reaching blades, playing at the curls in Mariq’s shaggy bronze hair. The ruins stood immobile and immeasurable, both testimony and tribute, both truth and myth, a present fact and a forgotten fiction, the ancient Sedda of the ancient Delamarr; the seat of an Empire, millennia untold. It was more a city for giants, than a city for men.

The tales told of much and more, of wonder and marvel, of glory and woe. And they told the saddest tale of all amongst them, the one that held and bound them all from start to finish and wrapped them up for good. For it was there of old that the Ancient Eldermen, those of the Long-Seeing-Eye, though clear not long enough, had bound their vengeful Gods in adamantine chains and imprisoned them, deep below the hallowed halls of the Sedda itself. And such bitter an irony it might have been for those arcane titans, the place a gift from the Gods themselves, if ever it were like to become a permanent arrangement. But the reckoning had come of course, as sure it must. And the Gods had torn that city down and wrought its ruin upon the grassy plain, the Eldermen all dead or scattered, gone to some deep dark corner out of space, gone to grieve and to weep, for the fate and the falling of the ancient Delamarr.

Mariq thought on this and more, as he sat amongst the Sedda’s crumbling bones. All gone to wreck and ruin. All gone to dust. He was tired and weary. He had journeyed long and far, travelled many years upon this lonely road. Deep and fetid jungles had struggled to ensnare him, strange, exotic cities to bewitch. In Shamazarr the Wandering Priestess had nearly sold him to her God. And yet, he had escaped and made it here at last.

The ruins cast gruesome shadow forms in the dying of the light. Ghosts of shade and darkness prowled the silent fields. The air came fresh and cool, fragrant and sweet, like morning, despite the night. Mariq grew sleepy and dozed a little, as the silver stars pulsed silent warning from their distant empires far beyond.

With time he slept, and with time again, he began to dream. He dreamed he had returned, once more to the ancient Sedda. He dreamed that he had been here many times before. A hundred times perhaps. A thousand times. In his dreams he saw it all, as it was, as it could be yet again to come, as once it was before, so very long ago, in ancient days of glory, and as it would yet be, when not even memory remained.

And always as he saw it, he saw it just the same; the twinkling stars high above against a purple sky, the bright and orange stones, set upon a field of emerald grass.

Mariq trembled at the weight of the thing, wholly mystified by its presence, baffled at its conception, utterly inconsolable at the very fact of its being, for he held within his hands a book which could never possibly exist. Its pages were yellowed and dusty. Its content, transcribed in an elegantly flowing hand, of an ancient script unused for centuries past. It was bound in crimson leather from the hide of a beast long since lost to the face of the world. It was a tome from out of darkest history passed, and yet, until yesterday, it had never even existed.

How could he know this? How could he be sure? How could he not be sure!? How could he not know, without the most terrifying certainty!? The evidence was irrefutable. Had the Elder Mariq not dedicated his entire academic career towards the finer points of linear identification? Was he not an arcane master of the entropic flow? And yet, despite it all, how could such a thing be? How could such a paradox exist!?

In all his many years of study, the Elder Mage had known nothing of it’s like before. Learned nothing that could explain it. And Mariq was no second-rate scholar at that. One does not ascend to Patriarch of the Dundashad without due ability. One does not lead the Magi of Klieff from anything but the surest of foundations. The venerable Elder Mariq was largely considered to be the greatest mind to sit the hallowed Conclave. And yet the paradox before him remained impregnable. And yet, it remained irrefutable.

All options had been considered. All possible variables calculated and addressed. Every alternative proved to be impossible. All other avenues had been exhausted. And yet, this, the case as it surely must be, the only considerable truth, was the most logically impossible of all.

For sure, strange days were upon them. The strangest of all perhaps. The strangest ever to have been. What else could this foretell but some fundamental shifting in the very fabric of their reality? What else could this text be but the harbinger of some new age, yet to come? As far as Mariq could see, only one more option remained. He stole himself for revelation, set his mind to action and turned the first page over.

“The past is the dream of another” declared the text, its voice crawling deep within the reader’s mind, straining for leverage with a thousand undead fingers, fumbling for purchase amongst the craggy innards of that warren-like domain, successfully achieving at every effort. “The future is but a lie of the present” the voice continued. “The world, all over, was born but only yesterday. Tomorrow, and forever tomorrow, the world shall forever be born again.”

Mariq fell to the floor.

III

Mariq stood alone in the ancient hall, a silent pilgrim, wrapped within a desert robe of dusty ebon silk. Windblown sands scattered the crumbling tiles, sunlight split the shadow in a geometric play of rainbow colour. The God Machine hummed gently to its silent dirge, a shiny metal behemoth, all twinkling lights and obtuse metal angles, as full of life and terrifying vitality as ever it had been. Ten millennia of waiting could not strip it of its grandeur. For all the dust and creeping ruin spread about the ancient hall, the God Machine cared not. It would not bend its will to time.

Mariq put forth another step and feared it might be his last. From deep within the monster’s shiny innards came the mournful chiming bell. Time was but a slave to the God Machine after all. Reality was but matter, held tight within in its steely, eternal paw.

The Machine set all at once to rumbling, as the bell continued to toll. Its lights and dials set to flashing, exploding in a kaleidoscopic spectacle of optical madness. Sound and vision made a mockery of space and form. A new reality was forming, spilling out and everywhere, pouring forth from somewhere deep within.

The change had come again once more and Mariq knew that it would take him. He had come so far! So damned far! And all at last for nought again?

The paling orange walls began to run and bleed, like so much dribbling paint. All was fading now, all was moving onwards. All but for the God Machine, of course. All but for the shiny, shiny beast.

“Some days are longer than others, Mariq” boomed a voice from the heart of the maelstrom. “But no day may last forever.”

Mariq looked out from his prison at the people down below. There were many of them, and all of them in flow; fluttering from here to there, aimlessly wandering through their daily lives, endlessly perpetuating their daily farce of assumed independent existence, each of them a mind within itself, a world within a world. And this, a world of lies.

He might have pitied them, if he had thought they ever ran the risk of having to face the unimaginable truth of their bondage. He may have even wept for them, once upon a time, before he learned that ignorance was all they craved, that escape from the awful burden of truth was all that they hoped for. Every day again to wake unto another lie! Every day to wake unto a fiction, a myth of mind and memory!

The things he had learnt in his years of devotion to the quest would bend their tiny little minds. The things he had discovered! The things he had seen! And all it took was the knowing of it. All it took was the ken. The right sign here, the proper movement there. A step, a hop and a jump, and you were free, transcending the boundaries, slipping through the net! Easy, once you knew how.

Damn the Viscari for their intervention! Damn those over-righteous fools! They had no idea what they were meddling in. Of course, how could they? What were they but dreams within dreams, figments of their own imagination? Playthings of the Gods, each and every one of them.

Damn the Gods then, if anyone were to be damned! Damn the Gods for creating the Viscari! Damn the Gods for all of it! Was it not they who put it all in motion?

Of course, it was difficult to know if it was really the Viscari who intervened at all. He could not say what might have got to them first. How was he, after all, to even know if they even existed yesterday? But yes, yes, they must have. He’d seen them before. They came and went. Like the others but different. A recurrent theme; policeman, soldiers, priests, archetypes! Fools! Lies! All of them lies! For sure of that if nothing else.

Still, he had to keep it straight! He had to keep it all in place. Damn it, if sanity wasn’t becoming ever harder to keep a hold of. That was just the way they wanted it of course. That was the way they meant for it to go. And how could it not go that way now? How could it go any other way?

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! So much lost! So much learning, all gone to waste. All of it, gone, gone into nothing. With the turning of the world would come the turning of all worlds. And if not for such fickle fate he would have beaten it! Finally, he would have broken free!

That was, of course… unless the Viscari were always meant to catch him. Unless, that was the way it was always meant to go. But no, it could not have been. The Gods did not know where he was. How could they? He had eluded them had he not? The right sign here. The proper movement over there. Yes. Yes! He had eluded them. Of course he had. Unless, of course…!? But no. Surely not. Surely not that!?

No! It could not be! Not that! Could it? No. No! No, no, no! He would not even think it. He must not let it in, or for sure he’d be mad by sunset. Damn them! Damn them! Damn them all! Too cruel! Too damned cruel! Even for them, so… so cruel!

It could not be. He had done it! Yes! He had done it! The right signs. The proper movements. All as it should be. Easy when you know how. It was his triumph. His long sort achievement. Seven years in the realm of eternal day. Seven years of endless commitment to the art of it. It was his! All of it, his! It must be! It… must… be!

Below him the crowds continued to flow; the people carried on about their daily lives, milling in their multitudes, swarming, seething, flooding through the streets and houses, packed amongst the alleys and the market squares, each and every one of them, a world within a world.

“Even this!?” asked Mariq. “Even this!?”

The old man’s screams echoed long into the night, and for sure old Danibarr had never known such lamentation. Or so at least it would be said, by the people down below.

The lab was dark but not entirely bereft of life. Electric lights flickered at computer terminals, white and red and yellow. Machinery hummed softly, an ever-present dirge beneath the surface reality. Sleep tanks murmured of hidden dreams and other worlds, reality set and reset at the flicking of a switch.

Mariq stood before a glowing green monitor, tapping in numbers on a huge black keyboard. The light cast shadows across the pallid contours of his face, his heavy eyelids narrowed to slits, his brow furrowed in furious concentration. Fatigue hung darkening bags below his tired eyes. A lifetime of dedicated study told its tale in creeping lines across his skin, despite his relative youth. A youth he had willingly sacrificed in dedication to his work. And it seemed the sacrifice had been worth it. Mariq would be going places. The experiment was working.

The tests had gone better than he could ever have hoped. The output had been immense, the projections more informative than he ever could have predicted. Not to mention how receptive the programmes themselves had been. Barely a one had failed to react. A few troublesome anomalies of course but nothing he couldn’t handle. Easily reset and realigned. Besides, they themselves had told him so much; even the most problematic contributing greatly towards the benefit of the whole.

Mariq stood back and shut off the display, unplugging the backup cord from the side of his skull, flipping his brain-state back to full-reg. He had to congratulate himself. It was indeed a most successful investigation. His most successful yet. All he had been building and working towards. All of it coming together at last. The Board would have to be impressed. How could they not be!?

Mariq stepped through into the half light of the locker room and paused before the mirror to take a good long look at himself. He imagined how fine he might look in the cap and gown of Ascendency. He could almost see it now, the Venerable Professor Mariq, Master Investigator of the Directorate.

There would be uproar in certain sectors of course. His achievements would not be welcomed by all. The weak and the ignorant. The aggressively foolish. Oh, they would be up in arms! But they did not understand. And nor did they matter. The Board however, they would understand. He could not doubt it.

Perhaps, in fact, he should go and see them right away? Surely the results would warrant it! It was late yes, but not too late. And there was no doubting his wondrous achievement after all.

Yes. Yes! He would go them right this moment. Imagine the look upon their faces when they understood what he had achieved. Imagine their surprise. Their wonder! They would welcome him with open arms.

Mariq made himself look tall before the mirror, his chin raised high, jaw set firm. He brushed imaginary dirt from his cheap grey suit, straightened the tie about his neck. Professor Mariq! All his dreams come true. And oh so close! So close he could almost touch it!

And yet, he did not want to rush this. This, the most important achievement of his life. What if they considered his unannounced arrival impertinent? Or worse still, irrational. The Board had no patience for such behaviour. No patience at all. Better to wait, perhaps, than to risk throwing it all away through over-eagerness. Better to do things in their proper order. Everything in its proper place. Everything at its proper time.

Tomorrow then. He would do it tomorrow. There was, after all, always tomorrow.