Mists of Everness

by John C. Wright

  The seven winged figures waved their wings; the clouds grew together once more, and there was darkness over all.

  The pale and hideous beam of light issuing from the half-open gates reached up and touched those clouds. It immediately began to snow, and the fires burned dimly in the sudden, terrible cold.

  A dismal wind passed along the breadth of the sea; all the waves grew calm as a millpond. The water was as still and flat as a black mirror. In terrible quiet, they watched the last of the immense air fleet drop to destruction, annihilated by the tiniest effort of the unearthly forces of Acheron.

  The gates slowly began to inch open.

  Peter muttered, “The goddamn radiation didn’t even faze ’em.”

  Azrael said, “The final gates now open. Morningstar prepares to issue forth to claim his kingdom, and put all Earth beneath his scepter’s sway. Observe where, like columns of luminous mist, pacing with bowed haloes, and weeping blood, the four Guardians of the Four Quarters of the Earth are drawn, compelled to come pay homage to their new sovereign! Their steps are slow, and stir up the sea as they linger. Morningstar abides their coming … .”

  In the far distance, gleaming like comets, great luminous beings, their heads wrapped in the lower clouds, came silently over the sea toward Acheron.

  Pendrake ignored the sight and called up to Prometheus, “Sir! I have a question! Is the megaton yield of the nuclear warhead I’ve launched sufficient to destroy Acheron?”

  The Titan’s gaze jumped aside, and he pierced Pendrake with his glittering eyes. And now he laughed a carefree laugh, a quick, rising patter of notes. “Why, no! The resistance of the adamantium, combined with the power of the ice and seawater to dispel the heat and radiation, will render the blow ineffective. However, observe … .” And the Titan’s restless hands pulled up a length of pipe from the wreckage which lay sprawled across the deck, and bent it into a doubly curved shape something like the stitching on a baseball might look if seen without the ball.

  Prometheus raised a finger, and stared deeply into Pendrake’s eyes, saying in a low voice, “At extremely high temperatures, the behavior of subatomic exchange particles becomes symmetrical for all forces: electromagnetic, nucleonic, gravitic. This was the condition of the universe within the first three seconds of time after cosmogenisis. What you do not know, is that the same condition applies to supersaturated high-gauss magnetic fields. If the electromagnetic pulse of a thermonuclear explosive of ninety megatons is directed along a field of this shape, what would be the result?”

  The Titan held perfectly still, almost as if holding his breath, and waited for Pendrake’s answer.

  Pendrake said, “A toroidal field of symmetrical particles; if what you are saying is correct … .”

  “Aha! No! Picture not a field but a beam. What is the torsional diffraction of such a beam at that temperature?” The Titan impatiently interrupted.

  “It would depend on the behavior of the field at such high temperatures. Surely the field would be unstable.”

  Prometheus said, “Assume it was kept stable!”

  “The beam would curve.”

  “Aha! How far?”

  “That would depend on the aperture of the zone …”

  “And suppose, oh, suppose, that it were equal to the wavelength involved?”

  “It would curve back on itself.”

  “Would the resulting field interact constructively or destructively? And if it were constructive interaction, would the field strength build again?”

  Pendrake looked shocked. “It would continue to build asymptotically.”

  Now a calm look came over the Titan’s handsome face, as if all expression had been wiped clean by some breathless eagerness. He whispered softly: “Approaching zero or approaching infinity?”

  Pendrake’s face went entirely blank. Wendy, who had her arms around her husband, but her feet hovering above the deck, now leaned out and tugged on her father’s arm. “Daddy! I’m bored! What are you two talking about?”

  Pendrake said, “Quiet, darling. Daddy’s trying to figure out if he’s just been told the secret of an infinite power source of superatomic energy. No. It’s only nearly infinite. The energy levels would fall off as additional created particles were reabsorbed. Right?”

  “Correct, correct! Clever man! The energy level falls off in the inverse of the particular wave form, according to this formula.” The Titan scratched a few simple symbols with his forefinger into the steel deck-plates.

  Pendrake, stooping to look at the formula, said, “Would this ignite the free carbon in the atmosphere? A carbon chain reaction would destroy the entire atmosphere if it spread.”

  Prometheus said, “Observe your reaction mass figure. Outside of this field, normal asymmetrical particular interactions obtain. What is your conclusion?”

  “The initial sphere of reaction would reproduce a carbon fusion, producing higher elements. Outside that sphere, we are below critical mass and temperature thresholds. It should be safe. It might be safe. Is it safe?”

  Prometheus smiled but did not answer the question.

  Pendrake asked, “Will it destroy Acheron?”

  “The power of Creation can always overcome the servants of Destruction. Only Morningstar himself is great enough to withstand such a primal force.”

  Lemuel asked, “What is he talking about?”

  Pendrake said, “He just told me how to use a hydrogen explosion as an igniter to create a higher-level energy reaction, similar to what took place at the origin of the Universe. Imagine a little Big Bang. The explosion’s energy would keep turning back on itself, and create a hotter and hotter explosion. Not only does this have great potential for making cheap, easy-to-make weapons, but you could have cheap, almost free, almost infinite power. All you need is reaction mass to start the first explosion; it drives itself after that.”

  Prometheus smiled and spread his hands and said, “Such is the hallmark of all well-made creations.”

  Raven said, “You said is same as at beginning of universe. Would it make a new universe?”

  Prometheus smiled, his eyes lit with delight, and he answered in grave, measured tones, saying, “The topology of space is elastic according to the force applied. Sufficiently high-energy explosions would create singularities of any desired dimensions. The laws of nature within the singularity fields would depend on the initial conditions.”

  Raven said, “Say that again.”

  Prometheus said, “Yes. Yes, you could make little worlds. Don’t you want to? Having children is such a delight! The small sacrifices, which, from time to time, one might have to make for them, are always worth the pain.”

  The naval officer standing near Van Dam spoke up. “This is too dangerous. It might blow up the atmosphere, you said. Cheaper and easier to build than an atomic bomb, you said. Don’t we have enough to worry about already?”

  “Ah,” said Prometheus, “at last he speaks; and yet, as ever, anonymously. If one needs to feed on fear, one cannot speak aloud, and proud, and clear.”

  Azrael said, “My lords, it is past time for debate. For look! The Guardians of the Four Quarters of Earth have bowed before the half-open gate, and proffer sheaves of grain, bowls of wine, wreaths of flowers, and gems without price, all to grant the foe the bounties of the Earth. Pendragon, if you can call fire from heaven, call it forth, and smite Acheron. Whether we perish in flame or no, death is lovelier than the iron hells of Acheron.”

  Pendrake, for some reason, looked at Lemuel. “Any objections?”

  Lemuel said, “He’s right. He’s right. I’ve been there. He’s right.”

  “No time to waste,” said Pendrake. “Let’s get busy.”

  “But we’ve just lost,” said the naval officer next to Van Dam. “Our air fleet was just wiped out. Wiped out! Unless you wake the sleepers, we have no forces that can halt the forces of the enemy. Look at what just happened!”

  Azrael said, “All is lost. Name and fame and all. I have failed
…”

  Galen said, “I, I, uh, want to help, Mr. Pendrake. But we can’t build your superbomb in the next two minutes …”

  Pendrake said, “We can build it in one. We have all the elements here. All we have to do is put together what we have learned how to do logically. These fairies and all their magic can’t stop that.”

  Lemuel said, “How?”

  They all waited for his answer.

  Pendrake said, “Simple. Where did Wendy get that dress she’s wearing now?” They all looked at the green dress with cotton flowers growing along the skirts.

  “Fairy-land,” said Wendy. “It’s just something I dreamed up.”

  “She dreamed it. Then, when she woke up in Everness, it was a real, physical object. What is Everness? A place where (except when Lemuel turned on the lights) whatever happens in the dream-universe is exactly reflected here. Peter’s wheelchair can go fast enough to intercept the missile and recover the warhead we need. I can draw the technical plans and schematics for what we will need to make the cosmogenesis ignition system. Galen or Lemuel; one of you can go to sleep. You said you could do it in a moment, with a magic name. Galen, how good is your memory?”

  “Perfect,” said Galen. “The only thing I ever did my whole life was practice mnemonics.”

  “Good enough to memorize a technical drawing even if your didn’t understand it?”

  “The one-thousandth digit of pi is a nine. The one before that is a … let’s see, ‘wheat fields are white in August’ … an eight. That answer your question?”

  “Good. You go to sleep. You have a lucid dream exactly matching my specifications. Wendy touches her horn between my real drawing and the materials and hardware in your lucid dream. Is there any reason why my technical drawings cannot act like the design on the back of a dollar bill, in your dream-science?”

  Galen said, “It will work.”

  “Fine. The appliances become real. We connect them to the warhead. We use Peter’s Hammer to accelerate the warhead back into position over Acheron. We cure ourselves of radiation sickness with your arrows and your grandfather’s Grail.”

  Raven said, “And me? What I am to do?”

  Pendrake pointed to the curved metal shape Prometheus had bent. “You guide the electrical flows generated from the electromagnetic pulse of the primary explosion.”

  “What?”

  “If you can throw lightning, then you can spin lightning in a circle. That creates a magnetic field. The reason why fusion power projects have not worked heretofore is because sufficiently stable magnetic fields could not be generated to contain the plasma. But you, Raven, you are going to be our field generator. And since you are guiding it with your mind, it will be as perfectly stable as you can imagine.”

  The naval officer next to Van Dam said sharply, “This is insane! Recreating the Big Bang? Such a weapon, such power will destroy mankind! It’s like giving matches to children!”

  Prometheus smiled grimly, his red mantle stirring and billowing around him like agitated wings. “If you don’t give matches to children, how will they learn to build forges? Your objection is an utterance of craven fear; or, no! I give you too much credit! It is weak-minded jealousy of one’s betters. The same objection I heard the time Hercules released me, and I showed them how to grind gunpowder before I was caught again. Look! All the lesser slaves of freezing Acheron were reduced to ash by gunpowder, nitrates, and fire! Fire! Beautiful fire! Observe the efficiency!”

  The naval officer said sharply, “Mr. Pendrake! Don’t listen to this anarchist pyromaniac!”

  Raven said to his wife, “Wendy. Find out for us who this navy man really is, eh?”

  Wendy rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. It’s obviously Oberon.” She pointed the Moly Wand at the naval officer.

  The naval officer’s body rippled like an image seen underwater; they all had the sensation of suddenly waking up, and realizing the naval officer was nine feet tall, that his right eye-socket was an empty pit, that his left eye was a lambent gray pool, trembling with mysterious wisdom, and that he was dressed all in silks of gold, dark blue, and black, and that, for his crown, the two wings of a black swan rose up to either side of his shadowed visage.

  In the palm of his hand he carried a light like a star.

  Oberon said, “Pendrake, make not your terrible weapon; you will render the Earth entire to smoldering devastation. Put aside all weapons, and rely on the swords I have stored in heaven to defend you. They are not mortal weapons; they cannot fail. Have faith in me. It has been deemed to be thus: this world will fail, and a new world shall rise. Do not question what lies beyond all understanding.”

  Prometheus, looking down, smiled softly. “Require him to produce his evidence, and proofs of logic.”

  Wendy said, “Daddy, look out! He wants to kill you!”

  Pendrake smiled. “Men like him always want to kill men like me. Don’t worry, baby, Daddy knows what’s behind his creed. Daddy isn’t fooled.”

  Oberon turned toward Lemuel, saying, “I know your secret name, Bedevere Waylock, last faithful Guardian of Everness. You have stayed at your weary post so long, so very long, when brothers, wife, son, kith and country, and all the world besides, has scoffed and forgotten. How often have you wished for travel; how often have you broken faith with aliened kin, when you would not leave your house, your dutiful bed, not even for celebrations, for marriages, not even for funerals! Long have you waited your reward. Yet you have not waited in vain; for in my kingdom a chair of honor at my feast-table awaits, a crown of glory, raiment of light; youth, and pleasure, bounty, and bliss; and your fathers and brothers shall come forth to be glad with you. No pain of your long-suffering patience shall go without its balm; great faithfulness you have shown me, I shall be faithful to my promises in turn. Rejoice! For the hour of your reward is nigh. Yet one last trial and last temptation you now must overcome. For look! She who holds the horn must realize she cannot wield it to create what so her father wishes; she has not the art; only you, last Guardian of Everness. Deny to them the secret of the key; unleash not this terrible fire in the hand of unruly men; wake instead the sleepers who shall renew the world; and blow the herald note of paradise!”

  Galen said, “Hey! What about me? I thought I was a real Guardian at last, now, too!”

  Oberon’s shadowed head bent toward Galen. “But I see in you, your heart is turned away from me. Do you wish for honors from my hand? Then practice the patience and faithfulness which is your motto; repent; serve righteousness; become the instrument of the destiny of Earth; let wind the final horn-call!”

  Prometheus said, “There is no destiny, for I took from the stars the powers to guides men’s fates and gave this to men, little tyrant.”

  “Traitor!” and now Oberon’s voice crashed like a thunderclap. “And where was your loyalty to your own kind when I and my two brethren made war against your father! Where was your vowed loyalty to me when you led mankind astray!” Oberon turned to Lemuel. “You admire how he suffered for mankind when he was bound. But he loves not your race, no, not one whit!”

  “I was never bound, Lord of Envy,” said Prometheus, “only this body I wear. The vultures of destructions tore at it, true, true, but every dawn I had the pleasure of creating it anew.”

  Raven looked at the joyful, restless, ever-moving figure of the titan of fire; and he thought what a horrid crime it would be to chain so active a being as this; how much worse than imprisoning a man. Men grow weary and sometimes wish for solitude, motionlessness. Not Prometheus …

  Raven felt a warmth in his heart for the Titan. Fondness? Love? It was too early to say.

  Oberon was speaking in bitter, yet majestic tones. “Lemuel! Ask this Titan you so admire why he plans to study your machines that think, and what he dreams to make them into …”

  Prometheus looked pleased and said, “The machine intelligences that shall supercede mankind will have vastly greater intellect, which they will be able to increase at need and wi
ll accomplish in microseconds what requires men years. It will be wonderful! At last the blind weapons of the Thunderer shall be tamed, made into electricity, and turned to some useful …”

  Pendrake interrupted, saying, “We really do not have the time for this. Honestly. Oberon, you’ve been overruled. Wendy … ?”

  She shrugged and said, “But he’s right, Daddy. I really don’t know what to do to make a dream-gate; all I can do with this Unicorn horn is open and shut them. There isn’t time for me to guess and try and guess again, you know?”

  Lemuel had a frowning squint on his face. “Miss Wendy, I don’t see what all this debate is about. Even Prometheus admits that this superbomb cannot ever hurt Morningstar himself, only his servants. It is hopeless. Human might cannot win against the supernatural. Blow the Horn. Call the sleepers. End the world.”

  Wendy blinked. “I don’t have any horn to blow,” she said.

  Galen clapped his hands to his head, “Of course! It is not the gates of ivory and horn! It is the gates of an ivory horn! Wendy! You’ve had it in your hand all this time! It is not a horn like a trumpet-style horn. It is a horn like a unicorn horn.”

  Wendy held up the unicorn horn, which she drew from her belt. She looked carefully at it, and them pried up the silver cap that covered the tip. Underneath was a mouthpiece. The horn itself was hollow.

  Wendy looked at Raven. “What should I do?”

  Raven said, “Hand horn to Galen. He is only one who knows both sides of the big picture. He is Guardian of Everness.”

  “Well said, my son …,” murmured the Titan.

  Before anyone could say anything, or interfere, the horn was in Galen’s hands. He stared at it in shock, “Thanks a lot! Now I’ve got to decide the damned fate of the world!”

  Pendrake said, “One of you—I can’t remember who it was—said the horn could be made to make a place like Everness. Galen, if you know how to do such a thing, use them on these plans I’ve drawn up. I sketched them out in my calendar book while you people were jabbering.”

  Galen said, “Grandpa never told me the spell …”