Introduction
If you think you know everything about the creation of the Universe — you are wrong. Probably, you have a watch on your wrist. Do you know what it measures? Do you strongly believe in history books, facts, and evidence? In this case, your knowledge of the world is outdated.
What and who do you believe in? What doctrines do you use to manage your life? Don’t you think it’s time to take another outlook and listen to yourself after that? What would you hear?
The story’s genre is defined as fantasy, but it’s not quite fantasy. Even not quite a myth. Moreover, I wouldn’t say it is entertaining literature, although inquisitive-minded readers would be able to find a lot of interesting in it. I just find it difficult to say what it is. Maybe, those who provided me with information for writing know it. Or maybe, you know?
Foreword
Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.
(Richard Bach)
If you expect the book to explain every trifle, this story is not for you as well if you appreciate the form more than the content. If you adore patterns, stereotypes and only things with a long-term formal background — why do you need superfluous knowledge? Whom is this story for? It is for those who want to know the very beginning, the course of history and the forecasts. It is for those who want to read about people, gods, and mages, about matters and strange formulas of the universe. We can say, it is for looking into an alternative branch of the worldview and thinking about it. The forecasts can come true or not. It depends on you as well. And if someone says that you cannot change anything, do not believe. Because it is now when you can change everything. But do you want to?
The story’s genre is defined as fantasy, but it’s not quite fantasy. Even not quite a myth. And I wouldn’t say it is entertaining literature, although inquisitive-minded readers would be able to find a lot of interesting things in it. I just find it difficult to say what it is. Maybe, those who provided me with information for writing know it despite the wish to remain anonymous (basically, it was one person). Since the knowledge is not mine initially and I have no facts or evidences in my hands, the genre is defined as “fantasy”, which is the genre of pure imagination. Therefore, there will be only one answer to all questions regarding the myth (especially on “Ivaar”) — “I can’t tell you the truth, and I don’t want to lie.” And if I suddenly say otherwise, it means that it was said “at gunpoint” and should not be trusted.
What else can I say? The world is imperfect, but if it were perfect, if we were perfect, if everything were invented and done not to let anything new ever happen, and even dreams were left in the past… are you sure this world would be perfect?
The book is a tribute to two mysterious informers, a person who helped me to write this myth and all people without exception.
Best regards,
Ida Barieva
Chapter 1. I want to tell you how the Universe was created
The bright sun blazed between maple leaves casting gracious shade upon a children’s playground near a village of seven houses. Or there were eight? Does it matter? In this world (unlike the usual one), exact figures and deadlines became not so important after…
“Mom, look!” a strong girl with violet eyes pointed her finger at a white-haired wrinkled old woman in canvas robe who came up to the playground.
There were eight children who stopped playing at once and stared at her with their eyes full of curiosity, and two parents: a man with deep-set eyes, broad smile, rough hands, and a pencil behind his ear, and a slim woman with kind eyes and a pack of children’s albums in her hands. Nearby, there was a small group of young men sitting on benches arranged in semicircle at a wooden swing. One of them, a tall, fair-haired young man with spring-sky eyes had an m-kithara, and its pensive melody flew over the ground like a lone crane. Many of them had beautiful bracelets on their hands: blue, purple, yellow ones…
“Good day,” the woman greeted the old lady politely. “You’ve just come to us, haven’t you? Do you want some compote drink? Delicious, just yesterday made of baari berries. The duck…” she sniffed the air with slight smell of meat in it, “will be in about a dourt. Take a seat, please.”
“Thank you,” the old lady smiled and sat down on the offered bench. It was carved, wooden, same as everything around. “I’d be glad, but not before I merit this treat. I want to tell you a story, and I hope you will find it interesting.”
“Merit? What do you mean?” the woman threw back a lock of nut-brown hair from her forehead. “You’ve just come, I haven’t seen you in our village or nearby. It means that you’ve come from afar. Of course, you are hungry. And thirsty. Am I right? You don’t have to ‘merit’ anything.”
“You know, all of this doesn’t matter,” the old lady laughed with a deep laughter, which no one present had ever heard before. The sounds of the m-kithara subsided, and the young men listened to the newcomer. The old lady smiled as they approached. “Still, you’re right, I have really made a long way. Tell me, are there only people among you?”
“I’m grayence” the girl with the violet eyes who was the first to notice her snapped out at once. “My name is Alaya. What’s yours?”
“I’m Nia,” the old lady smiled. “Call me Nia.”
“I’m a mage, but not grayence” the guy with the m-kithara intervened. “I’m not sure you are interested in my name, but I am from a sunlight mage family. I’m local, we can say.”
“A gray maginess and a young mage,” Nia nodded in satisfaction. “In the world one turnover earlier, you would be called peoplewith paranormal abilities and I’m interested in everything — in your name as well.”
“They would call us people?!” Alaya rounded her eyes.
“Yes, they would,” the mage sighed. “The grayences don’t go to the Higher School of Magic, either light or dark one, so you luckily don’t have to cram up the history of turnovered worlds as even our history in which the mages were originally called this way,” he grimaced and sighed. “And my name is Kir.”
“Is the history of turnovered worlds taught in the higher school of magic?” Old Nia seemed to be somewhat disappointed. “Do they teach you a lot there? Can you tell me? I wouldn’t like to impart things that you already know better than me.”
“Tell me, and me!” the children started begging.
“Really, Kir, tell us,” the woman asked seriously. “You come to us for as long as I can remember. And you’ve never told us about those turnovered worlds.”
“Is it interesting for you?” he was really surprised, but gave in seeing excited nods. “Well… our planet is not the only one in the universe, do you know that?” More nods followed. “And our world is not the only one. Very seldom, displacement mages manage to get to other worlds. We call them turnovered worlds, but previously they were called parallel ones. I say “previously”, because once, in the pre-magical era, when there was no magic in our world either…
“It’s nonsense!” Alaya snorted.
“Excuse me, please, Kir, are you sure?” the woman interrupted him. “How could people like us live without mages like you?”
“I’m sure,” he nodded. “The History of Mages, volume one. There were no normal dates, the time was not measured by turns, dourts and heartbeats. Our family appeared at that time, it is one of the oldest in the world!” The last words sounded proudly, his shoulders straightened, and luster appeared in his eyes looking bored before. “It was the time when fundamental union arose between the ordinary people and the people with paranormal abilities, or just people and mages. The first ones depend on the second ones, and vice versa. However, fourteen turnovered worlds found by our displacement mages throughout the history are still different. There are only people and very few mages who are immediately engaged by people’s special services for their purposes,” he sighed, “but even more often they are treated by usual doctors doing their best to convert the paranormal people into just normal ones. Neither they, nor their magic have opportunities to develop (or even worse). Do you know the main difference between the people and the mages?”
“Mages have magic abilities, and people don’t, right?” intervened a young ordinary girl with hair of raven-wing color.
“The people have one body, and the mages have two, in ordinary and magical spaces. Mom, am I right?” Alaya puffed out her lower lip.
“Y-yes, I think,” the woman confirmed hesitatingly. “Kir, you promised to tell us about the turnovered worlds.”
“They are… just other worlds that differ from our one by a history turn,” Kir’s voice became halting. “It means that a key event happened in some world radically changing the course of its history, which made a kind of turn. Each of these turns means that the world is divided into two: the one where the event has happened, and the other one where it has not, or happened in another way. The original world continues to exist, and the other one becomes like… it is called the turnovered world.”
“Which one is original — where it has happened or where it has not?” Alaya wondered crossing hands on her chest.
“I don’t know. No one knows. The displacement mages do not even understand what events make the history turn. We just keep notes on the histories of the turnovered worlds and that’s it,” Kir looked at Nia. “Maybe, you know?”
“Yes, I do,” she nodded. “But tell me first, do you know how the worlds are created? How has everything appeared in the world and beyond its boundaries?”
The children gasped in different voices and moved closer. The girl with black hair snorted. The man and the woman exchanged glances. Kir rubbed his cheek that had twitched.
“I hope, there is nothing forbidden to hear for the children?” the man decided to make it clear and touched the pencil behind his ear.
“Aren’t you told about this yet? I am a little lost among the worlds, where ‘Ivaar’ was written and where it was not.”
“Ivaar” is a myth,” the girl snorted. “Besides… no one really knows anything about it! People say that the Heavenlians’ doctrine of the Great Archmage is somehow related to it. And that’s all. “Ivaar” is a myth. Like ancient Greek myths.”
“Exactly”, Nia nodded. “Do you know anything about that country, Ancient Greece? What is the world where it began its existence?”
“What?” The girl widened her eyes. “It has never existed! What we know about it is just a set of myths about some “gods” having fun. Foolish mages’ dreams about the power they never had!”
“Do you mean that the whole country has moved between the worlds? Like our displacement mages travel through the turnovered worlds?” Kir gave a guess.
“Ancient Greece is a myth itself!” Alaya cried out.
“It was a country of people… who fabulated many myths. Am I right?” The man put his hand into his hair, the pencil fell to the ground, but the man seemed not to notice it.
“All of you are right and wrong,” Nia smiled. “Perhaps I should start from the very beginning. Otherwise, everything I want to tell you would seem to be not the myth of Ivaar, but simply raving of a crazy old woman. I want to tell you how the Universewas created.”
“I’d rather take the children away,” the woman said quickly. “Wait for me, please. These stories are not for children.”
“Do you really think so? Don’t children have the right to know the truth? Still, as you wish,” Nia said politely. “May Alaya… stay?”
“And me! And me!” the children started shouting together.
“Mom, I’m staying!” Alaya flashed her violet eyes. “You’ll not be able to move me out!”
“I’ll be,” Kir said softly. “If Mom says that this story is not for children, it is not for children.”
The woman put the pack of albums on the bench, gathered a group of discontented children, and led them away. When they were already gone, Alaya stuck out her serious face from behind Nia’s canvas sleeve. The man moved to catch her, but Kir stopped him with a gesture.
“Alaya…” he began earnestly.
“She has a right to know,” Nia said. “She’s not just a child. She’s a gray maginess. The mages have no human childhood since the mages are not quite people.
She repeated the same to her mother when she returned and tried to take Alaya away from the strange stories. Still, after a short dispute, the girl stayed and teased Kir by putting her tongue out. He kindly laughed back and showed her the “horns”. The girl snorted, and everyone started making quiet noise anticipating an amusing story. However, Nia wrinkled her forehead as if making some decision.
“In the beginning there was no beginning…” she finally said in a serious voice.
Chapter 2. In the beginning there was no beginning
“Time is abstraction. In the original chaos, not only the space was absent, but the time as well. Even the words “absent”, “original” are used here only to calm down our nerves. In fact, the chaos has not disappeared and has not produced anything in the sense, which the people used to the concept of time mean with the word “produce”. There was no “beginning”, because everything always happens simultaneously. And it is exactly “everything”. Therefore, it is called “chaos”. The chaos is everywhere. It is a mess of accidents. Everything “possible to happen somewhen somewhere” happens in it. In addition, even its very existence is an accident, because it is an accident itself.
Perhaps, I’ve confused you, but I’m afraid that the concept of chaos and timeless existence is inorganic for me too. Because I was created in an already ordered space. It was in the world, where the mythical Ancient Greece once existed.”
“Were you created? Not born?” Kir asked immediately.
“I was created. Let me tell you everything step by step.
In this mess of accidents, one accident was the fact that someone, let’s call him the Absolute, managed to protect a certain area of “something” from the chaos. Something not driving him crazy, because reception of all possible information simultaneously plunges any mind into insanity. Intolerable insanity. Suffering. Despair. Chaos.
And this mind, powerful enough not only to remain sane, but also able to allocate a piece of “space” for it to breathe out, have some rest from the horror and insanity of the endless stream of simultaneous accidents, is the Universe’ creator.”
“Not the Archmage?” Alaya sobbed. “He is good. He loves us.”
“Not the gods?” Kir frowned. “You’ve started from the myth, and mythology includes gods.”
“No, all of them were later. That was the biggest disappointment in the life that I now live — that everything in the world and beyond its boundaries was originally created not by him. Although the world, which I came to you from, was really created by, as you call him, the ‘Great Archmage.’ In that world he is called in different ways, any monotheistic religion was fond of inventing a new label for the same object… But the names do not matter. I have a lot of them myself. The main thing is that he really exists. Moreover, he still really loves and believes in us. So does it matter how to call someone you can turn to, but who will never answer you with a voice or by a mobile phone?”
“By what?” no one understood.
“Whom you can’t contact by a water bracelet.”
“Aah. So, he did not create our world? But some other world? So you came…” questions followed one by one.
“He didn’t create the Universe, but he created a very good world. The world number three. The world with no space for the mages and gods. Unfortunately, it was not enough to protect this world from all the troubles. The world fell into a trap, which I’ll describe a little later and we stopped at the fact that the Absolute had managed to protect a piece of “something” from the surrounding chaos.
This “something” can be conventionally called the first world. Although there was neither the space nor the time in it yet. Only a certain state. The state of rest, as it could be called by the Absolute, who escaped from the chaos. However, the first world would drive us crazy at once.
It was uneasy even for the Absolute since he had his memory left. The memory of events behind the fragile fence of the pure power of his mind. And understanding of the easiness to return. To keep the mind, it was necessary to constantly support an enormous number of clutches protecting the first world from the chaos. And if he weakened the will even for a moment — the world would roll back, and returning therefrom was a pure accident, which, of course, happened simultaneously with the probability of failure. So, not to go crazy, it was better not to think about it.
Therefore, the Absolute invented the time to get further from the chaos. It was an abstraction separating the present from the terrible beginning. It allowed leaving the madness in some abstract past.
Still, there was something that did not allow leaving everything as was. It was terrible fear of returning to the chaos. It was nagging boredom since nothing happened in this piece of tranquility. It was “a kind of loneliness” due to the fact that he still saw glimpses of someone else in the chaos, some disheveled insane entities, whose appearance and disintegration were just as random as his ones. And there he was alone.
So, fear, boredom and loneliness.
Then, the Absolute, firmly clinging to the created world with “one hand”, plunged into the chaos to look for those “entities”, whose moments of existence he saw there.
They followed him. A swarm of shadows and ghosts broke into the first world. They were powerful like the ancient Greek gods, narcissistic, selfish. Interesting.
However, these entities almost turned the first world into the chaos or, as people call it, they almost brought it to “collapse”.
The Absolute pondered that, and when he barely managed to save the first world from the ones used to the freedom of chaos once again, choking with fear, he came up with a “safety lock”. Henceforth, even if the world “collapsed”, only a history throwback to “zero time” happened to it providing the inhabitants with a chance to correct their mistakes and not get back to the chaos. However, the Absolute did not hold anyone. If someone wanted to return from the order to the chaos, he let him go, because those who aspired to insanity were too strange for him. He was insane himself like all the inhabitants of the first world, but he did not like it at all.
He had feelings. Not like people’s feelings, but he had them. As he once said, the mind answers the question “How to do?”, but only the feelings can answer “What for?”. An insensitive one would not create any worlds. What for? He could be satisfied with the chaos, like those who returned from the first world back.
The first world trembled and shivered. A constellation of infinitely powerful entities not bound by any framework, accidentally degenerating into something else, disappearing forever, and being created again in addition, constantly led it to collapse. Although the “safety lock” still worked, but it was already cracking. However, the Absolute did not feel lonely anymore, but he understood — in fact, he returned to where he had come from. To the chaos.
I know you don’t like formulas. They are more preferred by inhabitants of the world one turnover before yours. But the first world’s formula was rather simple “0:1?..” (the formula signs appeared in the air in front of Nia). This means “zero, one unpredictable entity, and so on, and another turn round”. I’ll try to explain: such unpredictable lone creatures from the chaos lead the world somewhere further until they reach the collapse, come across a “safety lock”, and the history throwback to the “zero moment” occurs. Then, everything starts from the beginning, although according to a different “scenario”.
“It sounds like a trap,” Kir said shrewdly.
“It really is in some sense, but it seems so only until you are thrown into the chaos. This is protection. It becomes a trap only when the “scenario” stops changing. Unfortunately.
Hence, the first world became only a piece of slightly ordered chaos. The Absolute realized that the entities born by the chaos were not the answer to his question “What for?”. Then he realized: he needed entities born already there, in the ordered first world. Ones appreciating the order like their creator.
A “spark moment” appeared this way. It was the moment when new souls of the new world began to be aware of themselves, realized that they lived, felt, thought. They were created already having the memory given to them by the creator, being sure that they lived in this world long ago, and that their history includes millions of forward-moving turnovers. The most exciting thing was their confidence in the fact that the world, which they remembered, but which had not yet existed, still already existed.
In contrast to the material for the chaos beings, one of which the Absolute was himself, named “arridium”, the material for the new order entities, souls, was called “soulitude”.
“Were they human souls?” the woman asked, hugging Alaya who ran up to her.
“Yes, they were.”
It is difficult to say who was eventually created in whose “image and likeness”. The souls resembled the arridium entities in many ways. However, the Absolute absorbed their ideas. The ideas of what the world should be like, the world that had not been even finally created, as it turned out.
Due to that, two more materials appeared: tenoptrium having no consciousness same as everything nonliving, but possessing maximum stability, and immunium — unstable and providing “cure for the boredom” like everything living, though not necessarily having consciousness.
The first world was created of tenoptrium and immunium for the second time, and the second “zero moment” occurred. The first world really began to exist, although the people as living beings of the order did not notice that. For them, the world existed before that as well. This is difficult to understand if one denies the mind’s priority of creation and assume that initially there was only matter, while the mind appeared later “in some unknown way”.
“Maybe, it was really so in the chaos?” Kir asked uncertainly.
“Maybe. But I don’t recommend asking about the chaos from those who have fenced off from it, they dislike recalling it very much. If you need correct answers — dive into the chaos yourself. Yet, there is no guarantee that you ever return or manage to continue existing at all. The people’s belief in the immortality of the soul is based on the extraordinary strength of the soulitude, but it has these properties only in a place fenced off from the chaos.
“What was next?”
“Listen.”
“The first world was completely different from the world you live in and from all other worlds too. There were tenoptrium and immunium, but they took quite bizarre forms. And if you’ve ever been horrified by stories about ghosts and shadows, they were born in the first world, especially if they looked absolutely implausible. It still exists. Actually, all the worlds still exist; the difference is usually in the number of throwbacks, which left only something fundamentally new and spontaneously created in the souls — non-tenoptrium memory. In other words, when you live, your memories are based on something tenoptrium-based, some records in your memory. Of course, they are exposed to the unstable immunium and are slightly distorted, but in general — do you remember what happened yesterday? This is the tenoptrium memory.
The non-tenoptrium memory is eternal. It is imprinted in the arridium and soulitude. It changes them. This is not a complete copy of the tenoptrium memory. The non-tenoptrium memory is selective, it selects only important things.”
“Does it have a name?” Alaya asked aspirantly, hiding her hand in the mother’s one.
“Yes, it does, although I don’t like it. However, when I tried to change this name, someone above me objected. The non-tenoptrium memory is called “sadium” (sometimes the sadium in the soulitude is called “nicks”). I’m afraid it has something in common with the word “sadism”, uncontrolled enjoyment of others’ sufferings. Unfortunately, this feature, inexplicable from the ordinary people’s point of view, is a direct continuation of the non-tenoptrium memory. The memory fixing that someone’s pain is good, that it brings pleasure, is a “cure for boredom” in the soulitude, but much more often — in the arridium. For us, it is difficult to understand the very notion of “real boredom”, because something is constantly going on, we always have something to do, there is a constant countdown in our worlds. But all of this may be absent. Imagine a world, where nothing happens at all, the time lasts forever. Have you imagined? What would you do in it?”
“Have you come here to confuse my people?” Kir asked in a cheerful voice for some reason.
“I would say, to check them for strength,” Nia answered in a similar tone. “Sadium, when positive, is able to bind both arridium and soulitude, it is the only material giving true immortality and moving the history forward or pushing the world to the collapse when it is negative. However, the polarity had not yet been invented at that time.
What was next? The wonderful and terrible first world began to make the Absolute depressed. Indeed, it was quite entertaining, but horribly scary in addition. And he still felt lonely. All these mad singletons who emerged from the chaos gave only illusion of communication; in general, they mostly lived their strange life without being interested in the Absolute. As for the people (by the way, all the entities were same-sex, did I say it?), they either lived on their own… or began to mercilessly exploit the Absolute when he risked to appear among them. As he could do this, that and more. And much more. So, let him do it! Pampered by the life in the first world, the people thought this way. The end was always the same — being angry with the people’s indolence and ingratitude, the Absolute destroyed all people and created them again. And again. And so on, and another turn round.
Something was wrong.
Something was incorrect.
Therefore, the Absolute created the second world, where he introduced the concept of sex. He introduced figure “2”, which was the entity brightening up the boredom and loneliness of the original entity and helping to overcome the original fear.
Excuse me, ladies, but women were created as a kind exactly at that time. They were not independent units, they were assistants and additions to the basic entities.
“Wonderful, it means that I was born to be a crutch for some slob!” Alaya flushed with indignation.
“The indignation I hear has appeared only in the world number three. Wait a bit, we’ll get to it soon. And don’t worry, personally you and many other women have long ago become “independent”. Have they become happier due to this? I can’t say for sure. But let me continue the story.
The world number two followed the same way. At first, the entities of the world number one and the new female entities became aware of themselves. The “spark” moment was hectic, I remember it quite badly, because all thoughts were only about him. The Absolute. I was created to live for him.”
Alaya snorted loudly, the raven-haired girl twisted her eyes contemptuously. Only the woman moved closer to the man who hadn’t picked up his pencil and put her second hand into his rough palm. Nia looked at this gesture, a smile barely touching her wrinkled lips and she continued. Probably, sadder than she had to.
“Perhaps, it gave birth to the myth of original matriarchy, because the first “god” or “goddess” that mainly created the world number two was me, not the Absolute. I was also made of arridium, but with a pretty portion of sadium in it, I can say. It was an alloy of these materials called arsdeelle. The most terrible thing was my idea about the Absolute as true evil of the world, something awful like other chaos entities who later became the first gods, although fascinating my mind. I tried to struggle against them, I wanted to live in peace and prosperity.
Finally, I either lost or won. You can see my reflections in mythology, old history, and ancient fictions. Gaia, Hera, Guinevere, Morgan le Fay, Eve… Transformation of my names can give some idea about transformation of my non-tenoptrium memory and me as a kind of entity. That was the time when the Absolute formally introduced the concept of “soul” for the gods as well, meaning the memory remaining even after the death and history throwbacks. Just the people’s souls are made of soulitude and sadium, and the gods’ souls are made of arridium and sadium. This is a complex concept; its primary essence is easier to be learnt from the ancient Greek myths than from religious doctrines, especially Heavenlians’ ones. It is really based on “Ivaar” written by me; at that time, it was not called a myth yet. But the correlation is partial. When the Heavenlians’ doctrine was created, it was about life and death, and we had no time for figurative reasoning. It was about your world, world number four, going into oblivion. Or continuing to live and becoming the hope for the trapped world number three.”
Only the silence was an answer to this speech. The silence was so loud that it seemed to ring in the ears. For a long time, Nia watched the summer wind gently swaying the maple leaves and a black and white beetle crawling across one of them; then, she continued.
“The world number two never went through the “zero moment”. It was created and destroyed, its order was altered to find an order that would stop giving rise to the chaos and destruction around it. That would provide interest in life and cure for fear. As for the first aspect, everything was good, the second one was worse, and communication was the worst. If you remember, the pairs for the names I mentioned always conflicted with their partners. There was always something wrong, something missing. Sometimes it became absurd.
Other pairs were no better. It turned out that it was quite possible to create an entity, an ideal personal assistant. And he, or rather she, would be a really perfect assistant. She could be. But for some reason she also wanted to know the answers not only to the “how” questions, but also to the “why” ones. Why should I help the one who had created me to help him?
I was not created in the chaos, so I could not understand it, and the Absolute could not or did not want to provide me with this knowledge. Most likely, he didn’t want to. Having all this knowledge, I would become another chaos entity. Sexless. Useless.
The Absolute made attempts to improve the situation providing the couples with pleasure of physical unity with each other, but I will not address this matter specifically.”
Nia looked expressively at Alaya, who made a face. Nia smiled.
“The situation improved for some time. But not too much. The second world’s time was a period of great search. The time when the history was rewritten uncountable number of times. It was rewritten by gods, people, and jointly. Slight traces of that time can be seen in the third and fourth worlds. In both of them, the history develops in both directions — towards the future and towards the past. The real history, not just signs on the paper. In other words, the history of the past can be changed not only by the gods, but also by the people. It is the most difficult thing to understand, perhaps, for the inhabitants of the third world. They believe so much in facts and evidence, they don’t understand that the tenoptrium facts and evidence are not constants. Believing in them is like counting circles on the water.”
“Everything is possible, probable, and nothing is determined,” Kir said thoughtfully.
“That’s right,” Nia wiped a tear from her right eye. “This is the first postulate of mageth, the science of magic. One of those distinguishing the fourth world from the third one — in your world, everyone knows that one should trust not figures and dots on stone slabs or paper, but an own heart, the link between the tenoptrium world and sadium, the only immutable matter in all the worlds now. There, it is not so. Perhaps, only upon understanding this fact, your world stopped measuring time in hours and seconds using dourts instead, which are variable, one eighth of day or night, and heartbeats. You stopped measuring the history in years using the history turnovers, which move it forward.”
“But seconds, hours and years are left as auxiliary units of time, especially for the people,” Kir shrugged. “Still, you’re right, these units are so inaccurate. How could our civilization be based on them previously?”
“How? Due to the first postulate of mageth. Everything is possible and so on,” Nia laughed. “We have gone not so far from the chaos as we might think.”
“But we have a good world! It’s good!” Alaya said loudly and looked around in bewilderment. “Why are you silent? Don’t you think it’s good?”
Everyone began to hide eyes from her inquiring violet gaze.
“I’m afraid you’ve been saved from the last dark mages’ attempt to seize power,” Kir could not stand the complete silence. “It happened not very long ago, less than a year. Only intervention of an anonymous time mage saved us from being killed and “dark times” coming again. In this sense, I’m a little envious of this “world number three” with no mages and gods and hence no destructions they can cause if they wish.”
“But there are people there (and even relatively few people with paranormal abilities). Unfortunately, ordinary people found ways to bring terrible destructions even without mages and gods… Why do they need it?” Nia frowned, but only shook her head. “It seems to be their nature. They have never known the chaos, and it unconsciously attracts them like everything unknown. In fact, it attracts all of us, but especially them. Not everyone. But many of them, unfortunately. This is another feature distinguishing the gods and mages from people. The gods and mages have arridium initially, but the people are also able to get some; sometimes, it is even enough to become a god or a mage, but only when the eternal fire of love and kindness burns in the heart. The fire that was allegedly stolen from the gods by Prometheus in Ancient Greece. But there was no theft, this fire can be lit in anyone’s soul, whether they aregods, mages or people, whether they came from the chaos or not, a man or a woman. The one known as Prometheus was a chaos entity himself, he was one of the first to have this fire flaring in his chest and lighting the desire to create and wish to live. He was one of the first to receive an answer to the question ‘why’. Unfortunately, he was never born in the world number three, same as the Absolute himself.”
“So, what happened to the world number three?” Kir asked with a strange enthusiasm. “You said it was a very good world.”
“The second world crashed. Although there was much more order in it than in the first world, but there was a lot of chaos as well. At the same time, the first turnovered worlds began to appear. Although the first turnovers were, so to say, ‘trunk’ ones: they generated the turnovered worlds as their heirs and creations of the previous one, so the second world became the continuation of the first one. However, a whole halo of turnovered worlds’ branches emerging from the trunk was formed around the second world. They existed, because the gods and the Absolute wished it since their desire to find a “cure for boredom” was not satisfied even with the hectic second world. The ideas of these worlds came from people as well, sometimes resulting in another history re-writing. Sometimes the turnovered worlds of the branches entwined into the trunk.
At that time, the “mages” appeared in the second world; in other words, these were mortal gods of different power, but usually it was much less than the gods’ one. The people also could be mages. And even — it was new for the second world — the people tending to destruction. They also could possess some arridium, although the “divine fire” was not available to them.
When the off-world’s branch with the mages, especially dark ones, entwined into the trunk, a death sentence was signed for the second world. As entities, unfamiliar with the chaos initially and having received the strength and power of the arridium aimed both at creation and destruction, the people led the second world to another collapse.
Those times resulted in the fear not only of the gods, but also of the mages fixed in the people’s non-tenoptrium memory.
And this wave resulted in creation of the world number three; as for us, the beings from the past, we were left out. It just seems that the interconnection of the people and mages is a feature of the world number four. It existed always. The entities made of the chaos and the entities made of the order can’t exist without each other. For the first ones, the people are a source of vitality, “cure for boredom, fear, and insanity”, and ones filling their lives with meaning. Although it is not always the meaning wished by the people, it is not always light, but providing answers to the “why” questions. And the people decided that they needed neither the gods nor the mages anymore. What for? There were too many problems due to them, they usually were too selfish and tending to destruction. The people were not like that. Their basis was order. Thecosmos. Tenoptrium and immunium. That was the basis of their universe.”
“Was it the people’s choice?” Kir asked listening to Nia as if she were a prophet.
The black-haired girl winced at his voice. Alaya frowned. The woman looked in bewilderment at the man, who only picked up the fallen pencil.
“Everything is always the people’s choice,” Nia lowered her head sadly. “The gods and mages do not need to make choices, because they always can return to the worlds number one or two, any of the turnovered worlds around or create a new one and do whatever they wish. But they have already created everything possible, and they are just bored, so they circle around the people as a source of inspiration and vitality. As a random factor, which is so interesting to solve again and again. Why do they need people? However, what is the purpose of their lives without them? Without the people, both gods and mages go out, because “why?”