by Paul Edwards
Chapter eleven
I waited a week before I summoned Sam Clyver to the City of Magic.
My hands had healed sufficiently that I could move my fingers without pain. I was garbed in a dress from my distant past and on my face I wore the kohl and paint of an ancient Egyptian noblewoman.
I summoned him to the great hall of dreams, a building I had constructed in a failed attempt to recreate the beauty and awe I had felt when Sobek had appeared in my dreams for the last time.
It was still a magical place though and would do quite well as a stage for Sam and me in our last act together.
He appeared before me in a flash of light, he just stood there staring at me without a trace of fear, just a curious expression on his face.
“You reveal your true nature to me Kem, if it’s fear you want I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he said.
I smiled, “I have studied you Mr. Clyver... I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Then what... to kill me perhaps.”
“I want you to stop chasing me.”
“Ah... I’m afraid not Kem, it’s my destiny to catch you... or die trying.”
“Destiny... fate... things I don’t understand... you will stop Mr. Clyver,” I said.
“We are all victims of fate Kem, so either send me back or deal with me as you would.”
“When I first came to this time I was always at such a disadvantage, even simple algebra or a bank machine was beyond me. I always thought as I learned that mankind had known almost nothing all those millennia ago and that there was no advantage being from that age.”
“Things have come a long way,” Sam replied.
“Except for one thing... I was born before Isaac Newton, math was a used to count cows and assess taxes. This universe defined by math... deterministic I think is the word, this is not something we believed back then.”
“Now you know it’s true... fate and destiny, things we can’t shake.”
“Really? I was so curious about determinism, it struck me as a religion, so I studied it intensely. Do you know deterministic systems do only two things? They either do the same thing over and over again or are completely and unpredictably random.”
“So the universe is the second one then... is there a point to this?” Sam said annoyed.
“Well the random thing... do you know the saying that if you give a monkey a typewriter it will eventually type the entire works of Shakespeare given enough time?”
“Of course... philosophers blab about it.”
“Well the thing is someone has actually calculated how long it would take to randomly type the works of Shakespeare, if there was a universe of atom sized monkeys going at it from the start of time until the end of the universe.”
“So... the point,” Sam said.
“Well it turns out the chances of them producing a volume of Shakespeare are less than the chances of the sun not rising tomorrow.”
“Again... the point.”
“Every library has a copy... as well as Shaw and whoever else.”
“So we lucked out... we’re the one in a zillion.”
“My father was addicted to gambling and I’m pretty sure even he wouldn’t bet on the sun not coming up tomorrow.
You know I looked for an alternative theory of the universe... a non-determinist one... amazingly they don’t exist, even religion is deterministic.”
I noticed an uneasy look on Sam’s face, like he was expecting something bad.
“If you think you’re going to talk me into a corner, you’re wasting your time I’m not that philosophical,” he said.
“No... just a story, the point is there are many things people understand but can’t explain... the beauty of a girl... a funny joke... a song they like.
The thing is explaining something can only be done deterministically but if we’re really non-deterministic it would mean we could understand non-deterministic things, but we could never define them.
Sam looked at me, “I don’t understand.”
“There is no fate Sam... no destiny... at least not one created by a clockwork universe.”
I flicked a square on my sorcerer’s bracelet and a small wooden table appeared between us, there were a cardboard box and two file folders sitting on its top.
“I said I studied you Sam, I didn’t have a lot of time but I think I found the defining events of your life, the death of your mother by a petty criminal, and the love of your life rejecting you.”
Sam’s expression turned black and chilling.
“Your mother died when you were young and they never caught the perpetrator, and later when your girlfriend left you, you joined the military and then the Special Forces. You found out an indifference to death was quite an advantage in that trade.”
“I underestimated you Kem... “ Sam said in a voice quivering in anger.
“That cardboard box,” I pointed to it on the table, “there is an exact copy in the forty third precinct in the city your mother was murdered.”
“What is it?”
“It’s all the evidence you need to convict your mother’s murderer, who’s still alive by the way. I mislabelled it, and if you point this out to the police they will think that’s why it was lost. The lead inspector has died so they won’t ask any questions.”
“What’s this box for?”
“That’s if you have your own ideas”
“The other file what’s in it,” Sam asked.
“Your girlfriend loved you Sam... she left you because she didn’t want to go against her father’s wishes... or should I say the wishes of the weird church he belonged to. The file contains her address and some information about the church.”
“It’s over... she made her choices.”
“Yes she did... she’s single now with a small child, she left the church when her father died.”
“So...”
“Well this church doesn’t have a lot of ex-members if you know what I mean.”
“So If I take this... that’s the trade, I leave you alone,” Sam said.
“If you swear on your mother’s grave... I know what that means to you.”
Sam looked at me long and hard, I could tell he was trying to find an angle some trick.
“Ok... I’ll do it... I’ll leave you alone, I swear on my mother’s grave, “he walked over and picked up the cardboard box and folders off the table.
“They won’t stop chasing you you know, there will be others,”
“Ke sera sera.” I said.
I flicked one of the squares on my bracelet and Sam Clyver disappeared in a flash of light.
The end
