In this case, Lord Seth had been failing and failing badly.
The existence of Immortals senior to Lord Seth, who met and decided matters in council, was new news to Adam and even Niona. They assumed that Seth was the big boss, and never questioned how he came to power, or by whose authority. They never considered any being senior to Seth; why would they. It was only upon becoming Immortal that things became clearer as immortal knowledge was made available.
The Immortal at the top of the food chain was the inventor of life and as the Reality grew so did the need for administration, but the overall commandment to Immortal leaders with power was to develop and enhance the lives of mortals, not acquire the power of their own and rule over these lesser beings. The mortal world was left to itself to govern, and if these mortals found a way to make a peaceful, beneficial life for its kind, then that was a success. If they did not, it was for them to resolve unless a mortal race grew too warlike and began subjugating other life forms throughout the RealVerse. Distances between mortal planetary civilizations were great, which was purposeful.
In many of the cases of a failed Immortal administration, the misuse of power and adoption of less than beneficial social structures were usually the cause. Successful administrations were either neutral or promoted a healthy relationship of mutual contact and enlightenment between mortal and Immortal. The idea that Immortality bred uniformity and positive values for all was a popular human myth. There was variability within mortal realms. Free will was the foundation of it all; a great experiment in the expansion and diversity of life. Good things occurred, and bad things too, and not every error was correctable.
With this as background, Adam, now better informed by the Lanarii as to what was possible in the Immortal realm, convened his council of Immortals; Niona, Hana, the nerds, the Professionals, Noki, Patsy, Linnette, and Celeste were all in attendance.
“Thank you for all coming as today is a huge day for us all. I wish to propose changes to our collective realm for discussion about the nature and duties of mortals and Immortals, realms within the realms, and the interaction of mortals with Immortals. I have also been in close contact with our physicians and our mentors, the Lanarii, and I now know what has been ailing Niona and why, though this was no secret to her. When all causes that cannot be the precipitating factor of a sense of pain, discomfort and general unwellness are ruled out, there may remain only one or a few that can be those causes for Immortals, unlike mortals.
“I cannot judge with certainty and will not nor allow any other in this realm to judge the correctness of any behavior while a being is free to make choices. Choices made, however, must be accepted by beings and owned.
“In the case of what we shall do with our mortal captives, we shall defer any decision until Niona has given birth and we have discovered the fact of paternity and its consequences. Also, there is another troubling event has taken place which, in this case, will be my error to correct. We shall govern as a deliberative body and must decide how that deliberation will be structured. Unlike other similar realms, the Immortals who placed us in this position of authority decided it best to have two in equal command, and no action of the council may proceed without unanimity of the two leaders. If both do not agree, then such action, though the will of the Governing Council, will not be taken.
“According to the Lanarii, this is an experiment, and we should proceed with dignity, thoughtfulness, and caution.
“First, Immortals will be given more and broader knowledge in order to interact with mortals to benefit mortals in their growth as more enlightened beings. Mortals shall be made aware of the existence of Immortals and shall be allowed to interact with them in daily life.
“Second, Immortals and mortals shall be free to mate with each other or with mortals in the manner and method of their choosing. The progeny of such unions may be Immortal, mortal or mixed.
“Third, the communities of mortals, Immortals, and mixed societies shall be allowed to exist on a planet by planet, or species by species basis. Mortals may live only with other mortals and govern themselves freely according to their needs, wishes, and culture, up to a point. Immortals may exist in whatever form they wish and reside on planets or sections of the Realm with only other Immortals. Mixed race communities are also allowed and will be favored by us as the Governing Council. Well, at least by me, anyway.
“We shall contemplate these proposals and discuss at a later date. Are there any questions?”
“May we propose other structures or are we limited in choosing among options given us?”
“You are free to propose anything, and these are mere starting points. Also, I suggest we adopt a position that any experiment or system that is clearly failing should be terminated as soon as feasible, after consultation with those affected.”
“Fair enough.”
“I also suggest we begin by determining our own rules of order before attempting any other more permanent and widespread effect on the beings in our realm. We shall consult, not impose. That is my belief; you may not agree.”
“I have also been informed that after the basic infrastructure of our new Realm is complete, the Lanarii wish to go home. I wish for them to remain for a longer period of time, but they find existence in our reality disturbing and wish for the quiet of the contemplative life they knew before. They were assigned this task; they did not volunteer.”
“Who assigned them?”
“They either don’t know or will not say. Only that there are other layers of more senior Immortals above them, leading up to the One True God, the Creator of life and font an of all knowledge. God may be all-seeing and all-knowing but doesn’t become involved in the affairs of Immortals or mortals unless exigent circumstances exist. I am reminded that mortal life is a form of Immortality through procreation; it should not be wasted on war and stupidity. Management of planetary resources are vital and the unbridled drive to breed beyond the capacity of the planet to sustain itself is foolish. Free will assumes some degree of rationality and responsibility as well as some degree of irrationality.
“Love, emotions, and passion are unintended benefits of life and free will, and they are gifts.”
The Governing Council began to break up.
“There is one more item on the agenda. We must address this now, or we shall surely fail.”
“Which is?”
“Niona is pregnant with Seth’s child. And, he escaped the planet upon which he was placed and will be making his way here to collect his child. A son, I am told.”
Everyone turned to Niona except Adam.
“Why did you not tell us sooner?”
“I wasn’t sure. Seth created a new planet, a pleasure planet which he filled with cities, mortals, and Immortals over whom he ruled with absolute authority. The original idea was Hecate’s, but not how it eventually turned out.”
Niona paused.
“I was taken there and made to pleasure Seth and all whose fancy or favor struck him. When I said I was promiscuous, it was not the complete truth. I was forced into a form of sexual slavery and made to do hideous things. When I discovered I was pregnant, I was discarded, a story was then concocted by Lord Seth, and I was sent back to Adam, whose kindness was anticipated. Lord Seth always believed Adam would take me back. Then the Lord would wait to see if the child was his or that of another mortal or Immortal. It became obvious after a while that the child was his. No other explanation for the difficulty I encountered during gestation explains my pain and discomfort. Now he wants the child, his son, to be given over to him. For what purpose I don’t know, but that’s a non-starter.”
Adam then said, “Our problem is this. I will not countenance death by murder, execution or otherwise in this realm. Lord Seth and his son, if he develops into his father, will most likely pose a high risk to the peace and tranquility we wish to establish here. We cannot kill them, yet we cannot let them live. It is the rule of law versus the rule of the despot. Whic
h do we favor?
“This is Camelot writ large. I don’t know what to do, so I ask you to consider the dilemma. However, I alone will make this one decision after hearing your counsel. Niona cannot bear to lose her child not knowing what the meaning of this union is but cannot bear to allow her son to destroy all that is good in what we attempt to build. The best outcome is that the child is not Seth’s; that the pregnancy was simply an unusually difficult one and all will be well. We’ll see as her time approaches in the next few days according to the physicians. We have until then to decide. I beg you to put yourselves in Niona’s place and not decide coldly and without consideration for the value of every life.”
“Sophie’s Choice, the book you once asked Fionna to read said Hana. Now it’s meaning is clear. I wish it weren’t.”
Chapter 43
Niona gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, a fully formed and very clearly an Immortal child. Though not yet capable of everything it would soon be able to do, this child seemed to understand everything that was said about him from almost the moment of birth. He was, after all, the offspring of a powerful and ancient Immortal.
Normally an Immortal is created, not born, but Niona’s journey from Immortal to mortal and back again to Immortal had changed her. Though clearly aware that pregnancy was a risk in having sex with a mortal, she had not considered that sex with an Immortal in physical form could result in pregnancy. Still, babies popping up from the union of two Immortals in physical form was not happening, so Niona naturally thought it couldn’t happen to her either.
It didn’t matter anyway; sex on the pleasure planet was not consensual and with whom or how often Niona had sex was dictated by Lord Seth alone.
If it was not a natural occurrence, could it be something else? Could Seth have altered Niona in such a way as Immortal to Immortal unions were now possible and could change the very nature of Immortality itself? With procreation came a host of issues that had always been considered the weaknesses of mortals and, to many, the causes of their inferiority. Now if the Well of Life given by the One True God to chosen Immortals, such as Lord Seth, was no longer necessary, in a sense, to create more Immortals, what then? Immortals, like all life, could be produced by the same miracle as the union of the male and female of any mortal species. If the One true God was no longer the sole source of all new Immortal life and its evolution, what purpose did God serve?
***
The Immortals, including the Lanarii, began entering the minds of both Niona and her boy to determine what they could. The boy was named Marius, after the great Roman Genal, Gais Marius. The usual period after Immortal creation to begin the journey to full Immortality with “first knowledge” was a week; Marius achieved this within three days. Clearly, this child was special, though after weeks of mind examination none of the Immortals could fathom why or what it could mean.
Hana noticed that the boy was incrementally growing in size at a pace slightly faster than average, and accelerating; this was confirmed by both Niona’s doctors as well as by the Lanarii matrons on the planet, all of whom sensed something wasn’t only different about this child but dreadfully wrong.
Niona was in a panic. This was her son, and she loved him just like any other mom would.
Adam and the Immortal women and doctors had entered the boy’s mind and traced him back to inception. The concept of how Immortals are brought to life did not involve the same process as a mortal; when Adam and Noki first conceived their first born in his first life, Adam could see the moment the sperm entered the egg, the moment of conception creating a new life. No such process was ever recorded or even deemed possible for an Immortal created from the Well of Life. A droplet of the mixture from the Well was encased in a special force, and from there, it just grew — no women, no wombs, no birth defects; a perfect and pure life given by the One True God. Growth took time, but within a month a fully formed “teenage” Immortal was in existence. A year later, full maturity was achieved, and this newly minted Immortal was endowed not only with all the knowledge necessary for its duties and obligations to its Immortal Master but for the specialty to which it was assigned.
Even small incrementally faster growth, when calculated out, meant something was different, but what that was, was still a mystery.
What Adam, the doctors and the Immortal women all saw was the conception of the boy, named Marius. But Immortal women didn’t have eggs, and Immortal men didn’t have sperm in Immortal form. There must have been an intervening process that allowed this to happen, but by whom and why was unknown. Could Lord Seth, doctors of the Immortals or some superior Immortal have conspired to create a new process of life formation for Immortals? Hana and Noki each thought that the answer lay with the pleasure planet that the Lord created. They each believed that the process of procreation in a new way required beings that could create life in this fashion. Then in some arcane process either existent from ancient times or newly created by Seth himself, he synthesized the process. Mortals, Cyclical Immortals, and Immortals could be created in steps that lead from impossibility to possibility, then to actuality.
Seth, however, needed an Immortal that had been all three, and there was only one female like that: Niona. Why he used her as he did before insemination was also not understood, though Adam believed it integral to the process. Niona was first given over to mortal men and women, then to Cyclical Immortal men and women, then to Immortal men and women. When that process was complete, the Lord himself used Niona over and over again.
Adam turned to the Lanarii and asked what they knew of this strange process; the Lanarii ruled out Lord Seth as the architect. He just wasn’t, even for an Immortal, smart enough. No, the answer lay in ancient knowledge probably thought long lost but which wasn’t. There was only one Immortal in all of the Reality that could still remember that knowledge, and the Lanarii would send a delegation to meet with him.
They returned a week later. Odd, the Ancient had told them, he had been visited not that long ago by another Immortal interested in the same knowledge. No one else had even thought to inquire about a process that had long lost its meaning billions of billions of years ago.
The process was back, and Lord Seth would soon come to claim his son, the first of a related but fundamentally new race of Immortals that could procreate by themselves. This, along with the new ideas that Adam had generated for this new realm, and coupled with Lord Seth and a child that could stimulate a new race of powerful and flexible new Immortals, meant that the fundamental nature of RealVerse had changed.
Then it dawned on Hana and Niona at the same time. The child had been present in talks regarding the new plans for a new RealVerse; Niona and her son also mind communed, and the child could have discovered all Niona’s secrets if able. If Lord Seth gained control over the child, utter chaos could reign.
Seth was missing and his whereabouts unknown. They would protect the child at all costs and determine its fate after the debate, and the plans for a new RealVerse were completed. One problem could not slow down the other work. They would settle the fate of Marius soon. In the meantime, plans would be finalized, consultations taken and the implantation of the great new experiment begun.
The child would be kept away from future discussions, but in all likelihood, most of the damage was already done. The Governing Council considered, but narrowly rejected the proposition that the only means of achieving safety in this new RealVerse was the immediate termination of Marius’s life. Marius was watched closely, his mind entered often and examined, but the child was blameless in anything that would challenge the new order.
Hana was neither convinced nor fooled. Saldana, Noki, Cia, and Eene were of the opinion that Lord Seth had engineered this and was somewhere lurking close by. For the good of the RealVerse, they thought, Marius had to die.
The rest of the Governing Council, including its two most influential leaders, disagreed.
Marius lived.
***
T
he plans for the structure of the Governing Council were discussed, structured and adopted as were the new rules for all the proposals Adam had suggested for the roles and general relationships among mortals, Cyclical Immortals, and Immortals. Changes were made, refinements proposed and adopted and the discussion among all stakeholders concluded.
The one significant change proposed, discussed and adopted that came from Hana was to permit the free movement of beings from the planets and systems into which they were born to new destinations where other cultures governed by other rules could be adopted. Humans from Earth could live anywhere if the planet Earth was no longer to their liking.
It took several million years for the entirety of the Universes known to Adam and the Governing Council to fully adopt this new way of living. Each Universe and parts of Adam’s realm were given the flexibility to make and modify these basic frameworks to make them work practically.
After two million years, the new norms were generally accepted and the experiment deemed by senior Immortals as a general success.
***
In that far future, darkness began to fall. Something wasn’t right.
It was Marius.
He disappeared, then reappeared as an entirely new being. It was war, and darkness was upon the light.
Chapter 44
“Father, father? It’s time to wake up now. I have done everything you have required of me, and we are now ready. Father, it’s time to wake up, rise up and take the reins of power. All is in readiness for you, and I am hopeful that I have made you proud.”
Marius was now ready to waken his father after the long rest and meticulous planning they had been working on for tens of thousands of years. He had gained the trust of his “father” Adam St. James and his mother, Niona the Huntress, as well as everyone else on the Council of Governors except a few who had been suspicious of him all along. They had tried to discover the source and nature of the deception that they knew had to have taken place, but none of their theories, suspicions or accusations ever worked out, been proven or even led on a trail worth following.
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