The Root

My father liked to say that, “every road leads somewhere; generally, roads lead to other roads”. He first said it while we were driving some lost Sunday morning. I remember being in the back of the station-wagon. I remember the trees lining the slow country road. There was a field beyond the tree line, and beyond that, the faint glow of lavender on the horizon. It was our first trip to France. Driving, certainly lost, I'm sure that's when he said it.

My mother was livid, lost in the middle of the paysage. We were going north out of Paris, down backroads. My mother's lap was littered with maps. “Calm down,” my father said, “every road leads somewhere; generally, roads lead to other roads. We'll keep going until we find something and then we'll get back on track.” It didn't matter that we were low on gas, his logic was undeniable. We continued and, somehow, we escaped the dappled sun and the scent of horses.

I'm positive that he meant it only in regards to our travels, but I know later, as he aged poorly, that it came to mean more. He was a historian, a man of great perspective, and he taught me to look for the underlying causes, the pieces of the puzzle that aren't well seen but play the larger part in history. He taught me first of the Enclosure Movement when I asked him about the World Wars. He taught me the Romans when I asked about the early Kings of England. He was always searching backwards, every action had a reaction, everything had a consequence. He was convinced that if you went back far enough, there would be a means to tell where it all began.

The University of New Columbia was built on a platform on a hill overlooking the ruins of Philadelphia. The platform on which the buildings sit is anchored into the hill, but extends far enough out that the structures appear to be floating in the night sky. The whole campus employs sweeping arches, semipermeable flex-glass, and various light-producing algae and bacteria to take on the look of wind through stars, of smoke on glass, of slowly fading away. In the center of the campus stood the fountain, a colossal double-helix of water held in place by localized gravitational fields. Germantown Hall, the main academic center on campus, had the world's largest fully suspended outdoor

amphitheater. It too was made of glass, this time spun thin, weaved with soil and vines that crept through the structure to live symbiotically. In the dim september light, sitting on the edge of one of the amphitheater's seats, was Francis. Farther away from him, couples ate picnic dinner together and listened to the conservatory students perform.

Pallid, shaggy and chattering, Francis bit his nails, looking furtively around the amphitheater, obviously expecting someone, oblivious to anyone else's observations. He wore a wool sweater, a luxury from his grandfather's grandfather's time, checkered and lumpy. His black hair was messy. He had not shaved in weeks but his facial hair was thin. A stocky boy about Francis' age walked into the amphitheater and easily spied Francis, who, too caught up in his own nervous twitching, failed to spy him. The boy walked around the back edge of the amphitheater until he had come upon Francis, back still turned. The stocky boy jumped down onto Francis' back landing with lots of pomp but very little force. Nevertheless, Francis responded with a loud howl and an over-the-top flailing of arms. He fell backwards, sprawled out on a lower seat, cushioned by the soft green floor. The stocky boy grinned widely. He reached into the pocket of his brown nu-leather jacket.

Real leather was something that only existed in museums. Marijuana, on the other hand, was readily available to second-year college students. The two boys sat and smoked, watching the twinkling lights dot the countryside, winking in and out of existence as the wind disturbed the leaves in the trees. All around them, light played through the glass and the smoke that surrounded them. It felt natural, like they were only attempting to conceal themselves within their environment. They leaned backwards on each other. Francis reached backwards and stroked James' face, for once looking calm. The two young men were in love beneath the phosphorescent lights, surrounded by artificial stars and the wispy gas between them. And yet, Francis felt uneasy.

“I was up at the observatory yesterday.” For all his nervousness, Francis always kept his voice level.

“Ah, that's one of my favorite places on campus. That, and the lookout room on top of the dormitory building. You know that's the highest place you can go on campus? They say, on a clear day, you can see the ruins of Manhattan. The tips of the buildings are still glowing you see – their internal reactors still run the lights despite all the water – and even though no one goes in, they're still mostly operational. I read a great piece on the new diving expeditions...” His lover looked stately, gazing into the distance.

Francis listened, because he was in love, but it was clear from his face that he was in pain listening to his companion talk about something else. He had to speak, but couldn't bring himself to be rude. He grimaced and listened.

“And you know what they found? Even after a hundred-and-twenty years, the building's internal maintenance system had kept the whole place looking like new. Floors swept, lights on, not a single fish swimming amongst the offices and rooms. It's like looking into a window in the past.”

“Speaking of windows to the past, I was up at the observatory yesterday and the school has rolled out a new device.” Still level, Francis breathed a sigh of relief as his lover's story ended.

“Oh yeah? What does it do? I bet with this one we can see dead planets a thousand lightyears out, as if we were standing on their barren surfaces.”

“The detailed search of exoplanets will reveal that we aren't alone out here, but that's besides the point. Its a time machine.”

“I thought those were outlawed twenty years ago after the Tehran Incident. Also, why would the university purchase a useless machine? It's been proven time and time again that time travel is dangerous and, more importantly, impossible.”

“They didn't buy a time travel device. They bought a time machine. It's literally a window to the past. I managed to steal some time with one of the visiting Physics TA's and I asked him about it, about what made it different. I don't know how it works, I'm a psycho-history major, not one of the hard sciences like you.”

“Not like I'd understand it, I'm bio-pre-med. We should talk to Roger, that blond boy on your floor. I think he's a part of the Theoretical and Practical Engineering program.”

“I don't care about how it works.” For once, Francis was short. “I was never trying to figure out how it works. It exists as some constant bridge to the past, controlled by the user's will. I managed to catch the end of a demonstration too. You need years of training, but these people, once they've been trained, they hook themselves into this web of nodes and wires, like a wig. And they can see a window – they get the whole picture. The whole picture, I don't know how but you don't travel, your mind simply becomes one with the moment, you observe all things, are inside of all things. The damned thing works, that's all I care about. ”

“Then why did you bring it up?”

“It was never about how it works, its the fact that we can look into our pasts now. We can't touch anything, but we can see. We can see it all. If the university wanted to, they could find the first time I experimented with pot, they could watch as I have my first sexual experience. They could watch me and my brother shoot birds outside our grandfather's villa on the Savannah Zone. They could watch all of my darkest moments.”

“Then, what, are you afraid for your privacy? Because there's no way they would waste millions of dollars to watch you and your brother engage in routine childhood brutality. There's no way they'd

want to see your first time with me-”
“It's not about privacy! It doesn't matter, you're right, I don't matter. None of that matters and its

not that I'm worried they will do it for me. I'm not important enough for anyone to search through my past, and no one from the press is going to break into the observatory after hours and search for dirt on me. The school won't, nor will it ever, use the machine as a way to check up on incoming freshmen. I don't care about my privacy or the privacy of anyone else on this goddamn planet. But I am afraid for everyone's privacy. I'm afraid someone will do it for everyone. Could you imagine compiling a database of personal past inequity? A place to display everyone's terrible past, their deepest secrets, all out in the public, all on display at once? Could you imagine the pain?”

“Could you imagine the progress? It would work like Ancient Geneva, we'd all force each other to stay in line. Someone would find a way to gamify it, just another cheap way to commodify one of the most important pieces of human progress. You'll get points for being good and more points for appearing lower on the board-of-badness.” The husky boy laughed at his own joke heartily. “You know, maybe this is what Santa-Claus feels like.”

Francis scowled at his lover, still nervous, still twitchy. “I just don't know what humanity will find.”

It was dusty and hot on the plain outside León. Outside the walled city lay the vast armies of Almanzor. Clad in shining armor, sitting atop anxious horses, 10,000 Calvary-men waited for the signal. The city was theirs for the taking, and yet their general did not give the word.

Sitting alone in his tent, Almanzor would not hold counsel with his lieutenants. Something lay heavy on his brow. He had not slept well the night before. Outside his tent, a persistent raven had sat, rustling the flaps and disturbing his belongings. In the middle of the night, he had awoken and fired an arrow at the bird, half blind from rage and fully sightless from sleep. The errant shot he made in the dark of night proved true never the less, and the bird fell to the earth. He trekked to retrieve the arrow and found the bird's corpse, still breathing, bleeding out on the back of his war-flag. The bird flapped and spun on the ground, staining his symbol. He had knelt, and, after apologizing to Allah, had taken the bird into his hands. He removed the arrow and then wrapped the bird in the war-flag. Almanzor broke the raven's neck and tossed it into the fire. He walked back to bed and slept a turbulent sleep.

Outside the tent, his lieutenants and priests wandered back and forth. The light was diminishing. They had the advantage now. If they waited another day, the Christian north might be able to send

reinforcements. It was best if they moved out chiefly.
And yet the general did not move from his tent. His dreams had been disturbed by memories all

night long, all of them dark and sad. He saw his father and his brother. He saw his mother and a few men he had never seen before. He looked, and somehow knew he was looking north. He saw a blinding light, there, and knelt before it. It was warm. He felt at home. Behind him, played the day in which he was beaten by his father's servant. The man had delighted in the task, tearing Almanzor's childhood back to shreds. He could hear the cackling of his laugh all around him, his pale face and his terrible, bony hands. He cried, but the white light grew stronger. It enveloped him gently and he felt at home. When he woke that morning, his undergarments were soaked with sweat and he had a servant burn them. He walked about his camp and saw a few men gambling on executions. He chastised them for the act of gambling, but insisted the executions still continue in the manner on which they would be gambled over. He watched the headless bodies scramble clumsy over the ground, he watched the blood come freely and the men's lips move minutes after their separation. He felt nothing. He felt bored. He felt concerned.

He ate as the sun turned the sky from gray to blue and then retired to his tent. At midday, he gave the order for the troops to be put on alert. The whole army, twenty-five-thousand men gathered. Ten-thousand on horseback, fifteen thousand infantry, the pride of the caliphate. In the hot dust and sun, the whole army sat. For nearly seven hours, they sat at the ready. The sun was setting, the lieutenants were anxious. And still the general did not move. Almanzor was discontent. He had not wished to see his past.

It was late, and still Francis had not returned from his class. James sat at their proposed meeting spot on the back of the amphitheater. The green of the seats and the clear-black of the skies made him calm, despite his lover's disappearance. On a night like that one, he could not feel anything other than the warm breeze tickling the hairs on the back of his neck. Any moment, Francis would come stumbling down the stairs and into his arms. Their fingers would link and all the glass and bioluminescence would melt away softly into the inky night. They would be alone, in each other's eyes.

And so he sat, waiting, but Francis would not come. For half an hour he sat, expectantly. The other students had begun to leave. It was nearly 11PM and the night was becoming chilly. Though the university naturally radiated heat, enough so that snow-falling would never stick on the ground, it was still chilly. He had forgotten to bring a sweater. At half past 11, Francis came stumbling down the

amphitheater stairs. He looked sweaty and cold. He walked with his head down toward James.
“Where the fuck have you been? I waited for two hours. I thought you got out of your class at 9,

at a reasonable time. Do you have any idea what time it is? It's almost midnight. I have an exam in the morning and you stood me up!”

“I'm sorry.” Francis mumbled, not really looking at his lover. “It just, slipped my mind.”

“Just send me a message! It can't be that hard, I have the same heads-up contacts that you do, how difficult is it to think about me and send me some sort of a notification. Look I'll send you one now. Got it?”

“Its just a picture of your face and the words, 'I'm pissed'.”

“I'm pissed! Where were you?” James frowned. He sent another message – a frowning emoticon, archaic but understood. This was so unlike his nervous Nelson, his funny Francis. And what was wrong with him, why did he look so shaken. He stepped forward and reached out to take Francis close to him, but Francis stepped back.

“I'm sorry, I can't right now, I don't feel very well.”
“You feel so sick that you can't be touched by me?”
“I feel so sick that just being in this night air is almost too much. Do you have any water?” The two walked towards a water fountain a few feet away. Francis swayed and needed help

staying upright. He drank for a long time taking deep, meaningful gulps of water. He looked like he might cry. He finished drinking and stood up using the fountain for support. Quickly, his legs gave out beneath him and he fell to the floor. Sitting beneath the fountain, water dripping down it's leafy sides onto Fran's head, the boy broke.

“Fran, sugar, what's the matter?”

“I did it. I broke into the observatory and I used the machine and all I saw was blackness, no matter how far back I went, no matter where I went.”

The dorm room was mostly white. A traditional bed with blue sheets stood in one corner. One wall was a screen and acted as ever-changing scenery. Pictures of musicians from ages past flashed on the screen, pictures from famous museums marched one after another. Another wall was semi- permeable glass and changed at the swipe of a finger from frosted to clear. You could open a window to the world however large you wanted with that wall, and the view was breathtaking. Tonight, the stocky boy came into the dorm room holding Francis up. James gently set his lover's frail body onto the bed,

and walked to the window. He snapped his fingers and the whole wall frosted instantly. If he could have watched it in slow motion, he would have seen the glass change consistency. The molecular frosting crept through the window like ice on a lake. Francis, on the bed, began to vomit into a trashcan he had pulled from beneath his desk. He convulsed and choked, gagged, and spit into the can. His companion walked over to the bathroom and retrieved some water. Francis lay back in the bed.

“I'm so sorry. The process, unless you're properly trained, is incredibly disorienting. It takes a lot out of even the most skillful operator.”

James had melted. Any anger he had disappeared at the sight of Francis in pain. “Francis, sugar, you know you can't do that. You don't have the greatest of constitutions to begin with, and I'm sure that process, whatever it is, can't be good for your labyrinthitis.”

“I know. I would never be allowed to operate the machine with my condition, but I had to do it. I had to look.”

“At what? Did you look at your own past?”

“Of course! I started on my own past and I went to the day before I shot that bird, and I watched as my brother purchased the BB gun from a man on the other side of town, but I could also see my father down the road from him, having the affair that eventually split my parents apart. I remember the argument they had that night, while my brother and I hid in our room and looked at the weapon and wondered what it was like to feel physical pain so great that you would die. We talked about death and my parents yelled about sex outside and I had forgotten about that. I had forgotten that we went shooting because we were angry at him, angry at our father for having done something so selfish to all of us. But as I watched, I also saw my mother go about her drinking. And I saw the man my brother purchased the gun from go home and do his drinking. I saw him take a gun to his own head that night, sitting in his kitchen, boxers on, stained counter-tops, dishes piled up and bills on the floor. I saw him smoke a cigarette and put the gun up to his head, I saw his squeeze the trigger, I saw the gun click and him begin to cry. I watched him as a child. I saw him at my father's school when he was a kid, the two together in class, saying the pledge. I watched my mother get born. I watched a hundred funerals and a thousand deaths. I watched a bomb go off inside a bus in Indonesia, I watched it like I was there, I swear I still feel the heat and the shrapnel. I swear I saw the faces blur in the fire, blood evaporating like smoke. I saw the killer's peaceful face and I saw him as a child on his mother's breast. I watched it all happen and I kept going. I saw the first bomb drop in Australia. I sat beneath the first Chinese nuke and I watched it fall on me and destroy me. I was nothing. I was nothing. I was nothing. I watched myself come from something to nothing to nothing to nothing to something to nothing and all to nothing.”

Francis vomited again, his eyes spun in his head. He laughed as he vomited. He shouted obscenities in other languages and coughed up bile and a bit of blood. He laughed and wiped his mouth. James lovingly stroked his forehead. It was all he could do.

“Francis, please, never do this again.” “I won't.”

Almanzor paced back and forth. How had the dream overcome him so greatly? Was he not the champion of the Caliphate, the conqueror of the Christians? Had he not already sacked Barcelona? Had he not taken the bells of Santiago de Compostela to use as lanterns in his mosque? Yet where was his army last night while he slept. Where were those lanterns to light his dreams. Where had he been, to feel so comfortable looking north? He must have been in Ethiopia. Why was he there last night, why had he been beaten and felt so warm for it. He felt physically moved, still, as though his feet were on two continents at once. He had never been to Ethiopia, only heard the stories.

Almanzor steadied himself. This was no time to be thinking, this was a time for action. He could think following the battle. He knew the light was dimming outside and he only had a little time to do this right, to reduce casualties on his side. He quickly donned his uniform and sent for his servants to dress him. He strode from the tent, glorious and unconcerned with the time he had spent pondering. His men erupted in cheers to finally see their general. He was helped onto his horse. The men lit their torches. The archers moved into position and fired their first volley and then prepared their second. The infantry moved forward, shields high for defense. They moved like waves of ice crashing on the sandy beaches to the north. They moved so slowly, he could see them all walking individually. He watched them grit their teeth, he could see the horses behind him whinnying. He could see the buzzards flying above and the ants that walked below his soldier's feet. He watch the wind move the hair on the backs of the soldier's necks. He dropped his arm and the second volley fired. He watched the black arrows pierce the air and halt before him, mid flight. He watched them spin in place, falling clumsily back to earth. He watched them pierce the shoulders and foreheads of the people in the city, the soldiers running too and fro to prepare the defenses. His wave of infantry men crashed upon the castle walls, their hungry voices calling for the wall to topple. They poured themselves against the door like angry drops, some falling from arrow fire. Other tossed their torches over the city walls. The east gate was stressed. Almanzor could taste the splintered wood. He could smell the beaded sweat, the blood and shit pooling at his soldier's heels. He could feel the cries of the wounded on the backs of his arms and

in the balls of his feet. He wanted to run.
Mounted on his horse, Almanzor and his calvary attacked. They flew down the plain. The

archers, behind, fired a third volley, raining down upon the city to herald the horses' coming. Around him, soldiers died, their bodies trampled beneath their brethren. Around him, the wind boiled, the dying sun was too hot. He felt parched. He saw the East-gate give way, the men pouring in, the fires climbing behind the walls, the blood flowing down the stones and on the sandy ground. He felt the heat from the sun and the wind. He would be torn apart by it. His skin crackled and peeled beneath his armor. He felt his arms separating from his torso, his legs slipping from his hips, the muscles loosening their grips, too dry. Almanzor was relieved that he would die this way, torn apart by the hot winds before his body crashed the gates and sent his men towards victory, death. Oh, how strange it was, to be the hot wind bearing down the back of the icy wave. The archers fired a fourth volley. They attacked in force, they were the victory, death.

His horse leapt the flames in front of the gate and trampled a Christian beneath it's feet. Almanzor swore he felt the feeling of grass beneath him. A rock fell from the wall above and hit Almanzor in the skull. He toppled from his horse, limp.

All was black. Within the blackness, a voice rang out and said, “I am Za-Ilmaknun, I am your true king. I am The Unknown. I am The Hidden-One. I am Your true King. Look north, young soul. Look backwards and see, young soul. You will die. I am your True king. I am Za-Ilmaknun, young soul. I am the Hidden-One. I am The Unknown. I am He.” Almanzor was looking north towards the light again. He heard men and women speaking together in the Basque tongue. He did not know how he knew it was Basque. He saw a great hill rising behind him. He saw his mother, her hands tender around his small form, long fingers wrapped about his small neck. He saw his father, absent, like he was supposed to be, a hollow form if there ever was. He felt the lashes of the whip, hot to the touch, each lash a gust. He saw the Prophet. All around him was the Prophet. He was on the back of the bull, it stretched out endlessly. He was on the Prophet's forehead, it all stretched out endlessly. The sun was bright, he looked north, the sand beneath his feet was warm, he could feel grass under his palms. The wind was too much, he felt his limbs loosen, his eyes dry up and wither. All around him was the Prophet, under his head was sand. He would die here. He was seen. He withered completely, becoming so close to nothing. He could see and could be seen. All of him, stretched endlessly across the horizon, his memories and their memories etched in the air like friezes in Greece. Graven images, they spoke to him. “I am Za-Ilmaknun, I am The Hidden-One, The Unknown.” Almanzor was known, all of him. He stood on his own back. It all stretched out endlessly. Bright letters of fire appeared on the wall before him, he was counted. He was seen. All of him was. Almanzor looked up and could see a pair of eyes

looking down at him.
And then he was awake, with a fright, back in his tent, a bandage around his head, heavy with

the weight of dried blood. He touched his skull tenderly and rose from his bed. Servants rushed towards him but he brushed them away and walked into the night air. The city burned and his men ate. His lieutenants all looked relieved to see him awake. Everyone smiled at him in the warm night.

Francis could not sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw nothing, just the blackness of the universe. Francis felt small, eternally small, infinitely small, a mote upon the back of a mote, riding forever through a vast ocean of emptiness. Gone was the soft gray from his eyelids. He could not see his blood vessels, he could not feel the warmth of his own skin. He was cold. He could not sleep.

Francis had to do it again. It was already a week since his last trip. The machine was marvelous, it showed him everything he could ever have wanted to see about the world, all at once, streaming right into his mind, the pictures were so clear like he was standing there, in every angle, at every point in space and time, it was all there, just without any sensations, except those his body created when it was confronted with these images. The brain is a powerful machine too, it can create something out of nothing, amplify those images until you actually feel the burning flames around you when you stand beneath the bomb and when you come out of that trance your arms are covered in quivering blisters, pustules ready to burst. You have your lover stroke your arms and he feels nothing but the pain is too intense, it is everywhere, your skin is tight and filled with fluid. Francis felt ready to pop.

He got out of bed, quietly. The glass room was a dusty grey blue. It was early in the morning. Soon, the sun would rise. He pulled a pair of pants on and draped a shirt over his skinny frame. He pulled on shoes too and slipped through the door. The hall was darker, but the ceiling was programmed to reflect the night sky, even if there were floors between him and the night sky. The stars were out. Orion's belt hung above him. At the end of the hall was the elevator-chute. He took it down to the ground floor of the wishbone-shaped glass building, traveling slowly down and forward, to the front of the building. The gigantic semi-permeable glass walls contained almost the entire undergraduate population, 6,000. Each of their rooms had a wall like Francis', some left their windows open and he could see inside, watched certain students sleeping. Others wrapped the smoky flex glass tight like a blanket to kept prying eyes out.

On the ground, he walked out the front of the building, past the bookstores, cafeterias and student government offices in the bottom of the dormitory. He crossed the campus, past the fountain,

glowing blue and bright in the night. Behind him rose the wall of a great hill. To his left, between the administrative buildings, he could see the nuclear glow of Manhattan. To his right, the inky blackness of old Philadelphia, visible only in the daytime beneath all the water.

The floor of the university, since it sat away from the hill, was designed to remain transparent, allowing the most light through. Unfortunately, many people did not enjoy the feeling of walking on seemingly nothing and so a compromise was reached. Beneath the feet of every person walked would appear a shaded area, to remind them that they stood on something solid. The rest of the platform would remain clear. Thus, as Francis walked over the black platform, like he strode over a silent sea, a frosted circle of glass trailed beneath him, forever reminding him that he wasn't in the middle of space, he was on a campus on Earth.

Past the fountain, through the quad, he came to the corridor between Germantown Hall and The New Empire Building, where the majority of classes and labs were held. Sitting, suspended between the two, above Francis' head, was the outdoor amphitheater, where he swore to his companion that he would never go back to the observatory. Francis didn't look up at the glass and vine above his head, Instead, he continued forward towards the side entrance to The New Empire Building. There, at the top, the highest point in all the country, sat the observatory. The building rose vertically so far that you couldn't see the top, and past that, the observatory rose further. The only truly solid building on campus, the majority of the building's stability was due to the carbon filament shaft that ran through it's center, acting as an elevator as well. The circular floors, mostly made from the same glass the rest of campus was constructed from, hung from the central shaft. The walls were more semi-permeable glass, all with the same circuits built in. Truly, the campus was designed to be as see-through as possible. The designers wanted everyone to think nothing was there.

The New Empire Building was quiet at night and the walls were dim. Upon entering, the algae floor lights came on and guided him to the elevator shaft, also lit by the green-yellow bioluminescent algae. The ceiling sconces shone with dim blue light from some bacteria pulled from a squid's gut and replicated. The whole place felt ghostly and alone. Francis hurried towards the elevator and took it all the way to the top. When he got out, he found he could look forever in either direction. He was so high he could clearly see the curvature of the earth. He felt close to space. Had he been outside, he would have died from oxygen deprivation – the observatory sat in the upper stratosphere. It was the only way for the time machine to work. It had to be able to tap into the earth's magnetic field and bend the light backwards through it. At least, that's what Francis thought he had heard.

He removed his shoes at the door and turned on the lights. The whole place sprung to life, the machine woke itself up. Francis knew he was doing something illegal, and that it would probably hurt

him but he had to do it. He lifted the wire wig above his head and slid into the eternal blackness once more.

Almanzor looked past the faces of his lieutenants. His servants and soldiers all rose at his exit. The city was taken, the men were celebrating their victory, death. A cheer erupted through the camp. The city burned behind him. The women were separated. The children were counted. The men had been chained or killed. The camp rejoiced. The city burned behind them all. His men urinated on the walls, watching their piss turn to steam in the night air. Lamentations were wailed. Children cried. His men smiled as he exited the tent. His lieutenants and servants all told him to lay down again.

His head throbbed. The stone had cracked his skull. He could feel the break in his skull. There was a breeze behind his eyes. The warm and cool night airs rushed together and swept in through the small holes, under all the bandages, through the blood and the lymph and the fluid that attempted to fill in the cracks. The breeze crept in like frost over a lake. Almanzor could feel the wind under his skin, behind his eyes. It swirled hot and cool around his mind. He was electric. He was dizzy. His lieutenants and servants all moved to keep him steady. Almanzor swayed in the breeze.

Before he knew it, he was laying back in his bed. He was surrounded by comrades. He could feel the heat from the burning city through the tent. He looked past the faces of his lieutenants. He looked past the captured women, the celebrating soldiers, the burning city, the endless night sky, the empty and distant stars. The wind behind his eyes would not stop. He did not wish it to. Almanzor closed his eyes and could see nothing but white. He could feel the pain radiating around him, but all was white. It was blinding. It was a different kind of darkness to what he had been expecting. It was all around him. He remembered the north, and the south. He looked to both, his eyes rolling wildly under his lids, and at both he found the same eternal whiteness. The brightness and clouded and filled his senses. It filled his nostrils like the air he struggled to breeze. He could feel no air on his skin, only behind his cracked skull, circulating through the veins around his brain, feeble as it was. He could smell nothing but white pain. His fingertips danced on the sheets of the bed. He could hear a voice speaking. It was his own. He spoke of pain, in unfamiliar tongues. His fingers danced and his lieutenants pushed their faces together, hovering around him in unison until they all became one, their faces a great collection of skin and eyes. Almanzor looked past this amalgamation towards the light that shone around him. His skin felt hot. He wished to peel himself, to rid himself of the weight. The covers were stifling. The air was white and the night brighter than the daylight. The city burned to his north

and he looked through the tent flaps into the world beyond. There was light out there, deep in the night. There was light to be seen everywhere through the night. The inky blackness was no match for the light.

Almanzor knew.

Sitting bolt upright in his bed, his dancing fingers took hold of his dearest servant's shirt and pulled him close. The ring of flesh and eyes that had become his lieutenants separated and moved backwards, shocked at the sudden movement. All were silent but Almanzor and his frenzied breathing. He spoke clearly.

“I will die soon”. 

James woke that morning, alone in Francis' room, alone in Francis' bed. James didn't need to look for him. James knew, as soon as he woke and didn't feel Francis' presence next to him. James just knew.

That night had ben difficult. He had the feeling, before he drifted to sleep, that he might have to break up with his first love. He didn't want to, of course. But this was college and they were sophomores at this point. Did he really want his entire college experience to be defined by this nervous boy who only minutes before seemed at the verge of death. Was this going to be his life? What about the parties he wanted to attend, the people he wanted to meet. Would Francis lead him towards a life of fame, or would his first real love only doom him to the same kind of obscurity as his Francis seemed determined to find?

It certainly didn't help that as Francis drifted to sleep he kept mumbling in different languages. They seemed to slip out through his lips the further he relaxed. He had to break up with his first love.

But when he awoke, and he found that Francis was no longer at his side, he knew instantly what it meant. The walls were still frosted shut. James looked around the room and, sure enough, Francis' clothes from the day before were gone. He hadn't even put on fresh underwear. He probably stank to high heaven in that observatory. James guessed his love had been arrested attempting to break back into the room with the time machine. Just as well he thought. This would be a perfect excuse to finally break off the engagement. While he wasn't angry, he felt like this would be a necessary step. James dressed himself in the silence of the empty room and felt good about this decision. He slipped on his shoes and grabbed his jacket from the chair. He turned towards the frosted window and snapped his fingers. The whole facade melted and revealed the outside world, the university that lived below his

feet. With the frosting lifted, so came the sounds from outside.
There were sirens, dozens and dozens of sirens. They were gathered at the base of the New

Empire. James' heart fell to his feet.

The elevator couldn't have gone slower. His feet couldn't have been heavier. The campus was frozen. The light from the medical transports seemed choppy, there one moment, gone another. He tried to run, but couldn't remember how. He walked on autopilot, his eyes scanning everything. He had to find him, find him in the crowd. James would hold his skinny love in his arms one more time and all the thoughts he had of ending their tryst had fled from his mind. What he wouldn't have given for his loved's fingers curled around his own. What he would have given to have his love with him, to be watching this commotion from his side.

But James knew. It wouldn't ever be possible. 

Everything was white and the pain was excruciating. Francis looked down and saw a man, fully clad in armor beneath him. There was a crack in the man's skull, and Francis could see the air rush in and out, pumped in behind his eyes rhythmically. He could feel the man's confusion, and looked as the man looked. To the north, there was blinding light. To the south, the same light. It was all around Francis now. It was everywhere, and he with it. He stretched out endlessly, the light enveloping him as he went, over the fields, through the burning cities, down the throats of the wailing women and under the cracked toenails of the dazed children. He wove between the limbs within piles of bodies. All was white, all was white, all stretched out endlessly, the pain and the joy intermingled. Francis was ale, drunk, veins pumping. Francis was air, the lack of, lungs exploding. Francis was fire and ice. He crept instantly across the surface of the world, he invaded the minds and bodies of countless people. He heard the earth cry out in ecstatic pain. He was a pair of eyes on the horizon.

It was everything. It was overwhelming, completely. He felt swept along within an infinite ocean of causation. He saw the ripples of events backwards and forwards. He felt wars and births. He was lost, every part of him was lost. He saw the tree. He was the forest. He was the tree and all things ran through him, pumped through his veins, laughed. All was white. He was whiteness. All was black. He was light. He was everything. And yet, he still wasn't.

Through the eternal brightness, there came the sound of a voice, clear and thunderous, whispered in the back of his ears, originating from somewhere between his eyes, reverberating his

skull, cracking it from the inside, the voice boomed like cannon shot, like crackling skin, like the deafening silent universe, it was everywhere. Francis was everywhere, everything, but this voice he was not. The voice, however, was Francis. He couldn't understand. How could he understand anything? How could he not?

“...THE UNKNOWN, Il-Malknun, YOUR true KING, TRUE KING, YOUR TRUE king, THE UNKNOWN, THE EVERLASTING, everlasting ZA-IlMalknun, Za-Il...”

Francis could feel the fracture on his skull. The skin lifted easily and the bone parted as if it had always wanted to. There were houses in the distance. His skull opened, skin sliding harmlessly, his brain the stamen of a flower, it all unfolded, unfurled, himself with it. Francis recoiled at the horror of the sound. He gave into the all encompassing. His brain left him, but he wouldn't need it anymore. Francis could see and had been seen. He saw his brain lift itself out, as if connected to a worm made of wires and electrical pulses, it just left him without a word. And his skin and bones twisted back together, they re-knit themselves perfectly, tighter and tighter spiraling together. He twisted like a napkin. Francis watched from above as his brain was pulled deep into the white by the wire worm. He watched the skin and bones from the neck up twist and congeal, he became unrecognizable, he was long unrecognizable, he lost any concern with that form. He was eyes looking downward, stretched out endlessly. His head twisted into a point, a perfect amalgamation of flesh and bone. He was a rubber band spun around too many times. His flesh looked like it might snap. The spiral might pop. His former flesh continued to twist, the bone continued to twist, the whole form twisted and elongated, the blood drained, the moisture left, and the strand of twisted flesh snapped.