Choice

by Gary Stringer

  Her friends all objected, but Eilidh ignored them and continued. As for this whole charade,” she spread her arms wide to encompass the ceremony. “It's ridiculous. What does it achieve? Nothing! Why do you think she's standing there," she gestured to indicate Niltsiar, "meekly playing by the rules? Because she knows it doesn't make any difference! We all know she's got the power to just take Life Infinity for herself, so I say let's just give it to her and be done with it, because frankly I've had enough!”

  The others gasped and protested, but Eilidh would have none of it. “Listen to me, Kismet! I am the Du y Kharia. Me! You listen only to me; do you understand? That's my rule! Now ask me again.” Du y Kharia,” Kismet repeated, calmly. “Is it your wish that I should giveNiltsiar Life Infinity?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Yes!” she repeated, emphatically, laughing at the absurdity of the question. “It can't be anything else but yes!” To Niltsiar, she said, “Nobody here has the power to stop

  you; that's the reality. I can't fight reality - no-one can. I can't do the impossible! So there we are: you win! Congratulations! You wanted my answer, Kismet? That’s it: give her what she wants. Give her Life Infinity! I think I'm going to be sick.”

  With that, she marched away from everyone and just stood, red faced and breathing heavily, turning her back on the whole thing and leaning on her staff. There was a stunned silence for a moment, until Kismet at last completed the ceremony.

  “Very well,” he said. “The Du y Khariahas spoken.”

  “The Du y Kharia makesa lot of sense,” Niltsiar returned. “Kismet, finish this. Now.” “It is decided, then,” Kismet agreed. At a movement of his hand, the glowing Life Flow Map drifted slowly towards Niltsiar and she spread her arms wide to embrace it. “At the behest of the Du y Kharia, I, Kismet, give you Life Infinity.”

  The glowing symbol grew and grew, getting brighter and brighter, expanding into the infinite void as Niltsiar joined herself with its power.

  They couldn't see her now - they could hardly bear to look at all. The light was so bright it was hurting their eyes. There came an ear-splitting scream of pain. Niltsiar was in agony - the power she was absorbing, it was too much, too fast, she needed to make it slow down but it wouldn’t. It just accelerated on and on, faster and faster, pouring itself into her very being. “What's happening to me?!” she demanded.

  Eilidh spun on her heel, and walked determinedly over to her, staring into the magic of the Well of Life with an unflinching gaze. It couldn’t hurt her eyes because there was no light– her brain just processed it that way. This was pure magic and as a Catalyst, she had been dealing in pure magic all her life. That was the reality and even here, reality was reality.

  “You're getting what you wanted: Life Infinity. Why, don't you like it?” Eilidh asked. “The magic is tearing me apart!” “Yes! Isn't it just? You see, I figured it out! I figured it all out! Nobody told me the rules so I decided to make up my own instead. I am the Du y Kharia, you see. I can do that.” She gave a crooked smile. “It's in the rules.”

  “I'll destroy you!" Nilstiar threatened. "I'll destroy you all! Everything!” The Catalyst shook her head. “Oh, I'm so sorry, but I'm afraid that's quite impossible,” she said. “In order to use magic, you have to send out your power in one form or another, but you accepted the gift of infinite power the magic's only going one way. You’re sucking it all in! Trying to send out your power now is like trying to fight a tidal wave with a drinking straw.”

  Then I've won! When I have all the power, I will have Life Infinity and then I can make you suffer my pain a million times over!” “No, no, no,” Eilidh groaned like a teacher talking to a particularly difficult pupil. “You still don't get it, do you? OK, I'll explain it in terms so simple even you can understand. Humans, elves, hobbits, gnomes, even dragons and the almighty Faerie - we all have one thing in common: we're all finite creatures. Our bodies have finite dimensions, our minds have a finite knowledge and our capacity for storing magical energy is also finite. You are trying to absorb infinite power into a finite self, and like the pint into the half pint pot, it just won't go. The maths simply doesn't add up. It was your dad who gave me the clue, though I don't think he realised how much it would help. One of the things he said to me as the Wise One was, `She cannot do the impossible`. I daresay he told you, too, over the years, but as usual you wouldn't listen. You will have Life Infinity,Niltsiar,” Eilidh told her, “the only way you ever could. Like you said - you're joining with it. You can't absorb the Well of Life, so the Well of Life will absorb you!”

  “No! Make it stop! I beg of you!”

  “I couldn't stop it even if I wanted to.”

  “Have pity on me!”

  “Pity? Oh yes, I pity you. I really do. You could have achieved so much. Instead, you’ve squandered your precious gift of life chasing a phantom, an impossible dream.”

  The light-thatwasn’t grew in intensity, matched by Niltsiar’s screams.

  “Looks like you're about to explode, Niltsiar! Quick any last words?”

  An explosion tore through the void, dissipating into infinity, leaving nothing of Niltsiar but a small pile of smouldering ash when the `light` faded.

  “I'll take that as a no, then.” Eilidh shoved her staff into the remains, grinding some onto the bottom of the shaft. “Ashes to ashes; dust to dust,” she intoned, before reversing her staff, bringing the tip up to her face and blowing the stuff off, dismissively.

  * * * * * Eilidh turned back to her friends, knowing she needed to say something but uncertain how to begin.

  “What just happened?” Phaer asked into the void.

  “I just stopped Niltsiar,” Eilidh replied, thankful for the easy opener. “And…erm…I suppose…” she hesitated – it wasn’t every day one had to say this, “…saved the world.”

  “And those things you said to us,” Rochelle ventured, “were some part of some strategy, I take it?”

  “Sort of, yes. I'm sorry, but I had to take control of the game and keep you out of it, for all our sakes."

  In the many tearful hugs that followed, all was forgiven.

  “Hold on,” Phaer said, “What do you mean `game`?” “Don’t you see? All this was a ceremony or ritual, which Kismet turned into a game. After all, they’re very similar things: they all have their own internal rules and everyone has a specific role to play. Niltsiar was the Seeker of Life Infinity, I was the Du y Kharia and you were my advisors, while Kismet was…well, Niltsiar called him Master of Ceremonies. He was a neutral party, a compere perhaps?”

  “I prefer to think of myself as a gameshow host!” Kismet called over, from where he was relaxing in a deckchair.

  Eilidh didn't know what that meant, but she knew better than to ask.

  “But what did you do?” Toli asked, looking up at her friend in amazement. “I mean how--? When--? I don't even know how to ask the question!”

  “Can you explain it to us?” Rochelle asked.

  “Yes,” Phaer agreed, with a crooked grin. “Bring us mere mortals up to speed.”

  “And go slow for us old folk, would you?” Merlyn added, walking over to join them with Ganieda and Artemis. Poking him in the ribs, Ganieda protested. “Less of the old, if you don't mind!” Her lips smiled as she said it, but her eyes betrayed the lie. Whatever else had happened, Ganieda had just lost her daughter. Nothing could change that truth and it would be a long time before her eyes smiled again.

  “That strategy of yours was worthy of Artisho’s, shall we say, `less lucid` moments?” Artemis put in.

  “Well, it might seem that way at first glance, but I assure you it all makes sense.” Eilidh protested. “Although truth be told, it wasn't a strategy so much as just working it out as I went along!”

  “Somehow, I doubt that,” Merlyn frowned.

  “No, it's true,” Phaer insisted, “we've seen her do it. It's just that her mind has done two laps of Mythallen while the rest of us are still trying to find our shoes.”

/>   To save herself further embarrassment, a blushingEilidh insisted, “No, seriously, Ganieda did a lot more long term planning than I ever did!”

  “You think so?” Ganieda asked. “When you saw your daughter’s growing obsession, you tried to hide some of the stories that were `too close to the truth`, right?”

  “Do you have a problem with that idea?”

  “It's rubbish!” Eilidh insisted, folding her arms. “As far as anyone knows, nobody has ever been to the Well of Life before, yes?”

  “True,” Ganieda agreed.

  “So how could you recognise these stories as `close to the truth`? How could you possibly know the truth of something of which nobody had any experience?”

  “She couldn’t,” Rochelle put in. “And yet clearly Niltsiar recognised elements of those stories in the real ceremony.” “Exactly,” agreed the Catalyst. “Those Ancient stories undeniably predicted the form of this ritual, and I’m supposed to believe that’s what--? Destiny? Prophecy? Coincidence? How about we go with the word strategy instead?” To her druid friend, she said, “Remind us, Rochelle: why do you hide things, again?”

  “You hide things with the intention that they be found,” she replied.

  “Wait!” Toli gasped. “You mean Ganieda hid them with the intention that Niltsiar would find them and automatically believe they must be important, when really they were just stuff she made up, like-” “ -Fiction,” Eilidh concluded, meeting Ganieda’s eyes, “and I bet you used Temporal magic to `age` them to make them more convincing, like the opposite of the magic used to preserve important historical works.”

  “You’re right, I did,” Ganieda confirmed, blinking in surprise.

  Eilidh shrugged. “It’s what I would do.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Phaer said. “This whole ritual was just a play written by Ganieda and acted out by Kismet for Niltsiar’s benefit? More window dressing as your Master Gamaliel would say?”

  “It fitted Niltsiar’s preconceptions and expectations, kept her from seeing the trap.”

  “But why would you do all that, Ganieda?” Rochelle asked the Faerie.

  “I told you why when we met in the library, Rochelle,” she prompted her.

  The gnome thought for a moment, then recalled. “Because a power battle must be avoided at all costs.”

  “Very true,” Eilidh nodded. “I couldn’t beat her with power, no-one could.” “Plotting to destroy your own daughter is a terrible thing but I knew that if it came down to it, she could only be beaten through guile and above all, free-thinking intelligence. Although I still have no idea how you did it.”

  “Well you practically just said it,” Eilidh insisted. “Pwortes y kharia ah itocam gincola: ryten majaos cho e natus y larbitum,” she said, as if that explained everything.

  “That’s from Du y Graetor, isn’t it?” Rochelle said.

  “You’ve read it?” Eilidh asked, surprised. It was more of a status symbol than a book people actually read beyond academic study.

  Rochelle shook her head. “It was banned by the Hand of Darkness in Avidon.”

  “And that stopped you?” Toli asked, incredulously, remembering her friend’s situation when they first met. “Of course,” Rochelle replied with mock indignation. “I was a model citizen!” Then, when she could withstand her friends’ disbelieving looks no longer, she admitted, “OK, I may have glanced at an illegal translation, once or twice.

  “To all future generations as a reminder of the power of choice and the magic of freedom into which they are born,” she quoted.

  “So what?” Phaer asked Eilidh. “Think about it,” she encouraged. “Du y Graetor means One of Many. Pwortes y kharia means Power of Choice. So how can Du y Khariamean Chosen One? It can’t. The syntax is all wrong. It’s not the Chosen One, it’s the One of Choice.”

  “What does that mean?” Phaer asked. It was Toli who answered. “I imagine it means someone who truly understands the value of choice, of individual free will. A person who is diametrically opposed to One of Destiny, a Chosen One, who would be a pawn of Prophecy and believe in a fate that has been decided for them.”

  “Precisely,” Eilidh said. “Nobody gave me any rules, which forced me to think for myself. The truth is, we should all be Du y Kharia. None of us should be governed by destiny or prophecy. We are none of us playthings of the gods. We can all make free choices that change our lives. But in the midst of this nonsense of a ceremony, I realised that none of you were really doing that. You were like students trying to make the question fit your expectations and misunderstanding what it was really asking.

  “What do you mean?” Merlyn asked. “Well, to put it in terms of a game,” the Catalyst said, “Niltsiar stated what prize she wanted and after being given ample opportunity to change her mind, my role in this game was to make the choice. A simple binary choice.”

  “A choice of yes or no,” Phaer suggested. "Should she have it or not." Eilidh shook her head, “That wasn’t the question. Kismet didn’t say `Should she have Life Infinity.` He said `Should I give her Life Infinity`. It seemed obvious I had to say `no` to Niltsiar, but that was the trap. Think about it: suppose I had said `no`, what then? Would Niltsiar just say `OK then, never mind, I'm just happy to have got this far`? Of course not. If my answer was no, she would have just taken the power anyway. You said as much yourself, Toli,” she reminded her hobbit friend.

  “But surely that means this was all for nothing!” Toli objected. “I mean, what was the point of all the fighting and killing? Why did we bother travelling across half the continent, risking life and limb if we could have all just stayed at home and let her get on with it? Why not just let her find the Well of Life herself? Let her get Life Infinity, it kills her and noone gets hurt. The End. I don't see the difference.”

  Eilidh decided not to point out that if they'd stayed at home they'd probably have been killed when Merlyon fell. Instead, she smiled and put a reassuring arm around her friend's shoulders. “Ah, Toli, as a certain backstabbing dwarf once said…” She put on a terrible highland accent. “`It's the difference between givin’ and takin’, lass`!” Abandoning her Granite impression, she continued, “What more difference could there be? Niltsiar said it herself: `I want Life Infinity and you either give it to me or I'll take it for myself`. Those were the real options: give or take.

  “We've seen for ourselves that the Well of Life isn't unprotected and undefended. No-one can just waltz in and grab its power without triggering those defences. If Niltsiar had been allowed to just take the power for herself, the magic would have protected itself."

  Rochelle caught on. “The more power she tr ied to rip from the Well, the more powerful would be the backlash. So Niltsiar would increase her own defences and rip still more magic to power them, which would in turn provoke an even greater reaction, creating a runaway cascade until...”

  “Bang?” Phaer suggested. Rochelle shook her head. “Bang doesn't even begin to cover it. According to my research, the use of raw magic in Ancient times would have led to a massive disaster over time, but the kind of power we're talking about here, released all at once. Well, it would have simply roasted Majaos and burnt it to a crisp in an instant!”

  Eilidh agreed. “That's where take would have led us. Instead, I said give her Life Infinity. Since it was a gift, Niltsiar accepted it gladly with no defences. Why would she need defences when she was getting what she wanted? Just like she happily went along with the rules - so long as she was getting what she wanted, why fight it? It also helped that she was expecting pain. By the time she realised something was wrong, it was too late for her defences to be of any use. The magic of the Well of Life had already joined with her and begun absorbing her.”

  Phaer drew on his knowledge of the natural world. "If you know the flood is coming, you can divert the water. If you wait until it hits, it's already too late."

  “So she's really dead, then?” Toli checked. “Well, it all depends on how you look at it,” Eilidh
supposed. “Niltsiar the person is gone, but her magic was absorbed by the Well of Life, so the next time you cast a spell, Toli, you never know: you might be using a bit of Niltsiar.”

  The hobbit shuddered at the thought.“Maybe I really will stickto cooking spells, after all!”

  Phaer was awestruck. “Are you trying to tell us that you figured all that out in about two minutes flat?” “Well,” Eilidh flushed, embarrassed at the pride and adoration in his eyes. “I had all the pieces already. The Du y Kharia bit was just the spark of inspiration I needed to put them all together. Besides, it takes longer to explain than did to think it through. In my head, it was more like `Choice not Chosen`, `yes not no`, `give not take`.”

  “Excuse me, O Esteemed Leader!” Kismet called over, “I hate to burst your bubble, but I think you'll find you're forgetting something. Does the small matter of a million chaos creatures ring any bells?”

  Chapter 33

  “Dear gods,” Toli gasped, “you’re right! Eilidh! People are still dying out there while we’re chatting in here! What are we going to do? How long have we been in here, anyway?”

  “No time at all,” Rochelle assured her. Then answering Eilidh’s look with mock indignation, she added, “Hey, you’re not the only one who can work stuff out you know!”

  “Never said I was!” Eilidh protested. “By all means, explain.” “Well, I think this whole place is an extension of Corridor magic,” the gnome said, before correcting herself, “or perhaps more accurately, the Corridors are like an extension of this place. So, just as Corridor travel is instantaneous, time doesn’t pass here, either. After all, time is a property of nature and there’s no nature here.”

  Artemis beamed. “Well done, Rochelle!”

  “Still, you can’t stay here forever,” Kismet insisted, “so I'd say it's time for another one of Eilidh’s `making it up as you go` miracles.”