The Time Surgeons

How long Tamorabi stood there in the snow he could not have said. When at last he opened his eyes again he looked out at the dark forest. There remained nothing behind him but the dead past; nothing ahead of him but the death of all he loved: a world of ice and wolves. Still the dead called to him with their strange lamentation. Yet underneath that was an even stranger music.

He frowned. He had not noticed it before but it was definitely there. The wind moaning through the broken city of the gods still keened like the wailing of the dead, but there was now more. There was something beguiling about the music, as if it held not despair but hope. Perhaps the dead were calling to him, knowing what he had lost, drawing him into their chill embrace. But is it a trap, or a homecoming?

Perhaps others had heard the music before him, only to flee in terror from the voices of the dead. But Tamorabi heard and believed. Tamorabi’s people had never heard of the sirens whose lying songs lured unwary sailors to their deaths, but they had their own legends sounding the same warning. Maybe others had heard the music and also believed, only to be drawn to their deaths. Tamorabi did not know what he believed, or even whether he now sought life or death. He knew only that the music was a third way, neither the way to old death nor the way to new: but perhaps the only way to life.

So he turned back to the broken city, and began to search for what he knew not, only that it was there.

The sun had crawled handspans higher into the sky by the time he found it. It was hard travel in here, the ground littered with the bodies of fallen giants, with traps for the unwary that could break a leg or perhaps drop a man to a deeper doom where there was nobody to hear his cries. And the music changed with the changes in the wind, sometimes stopping entirely, more often seeming to come from yet another direction; all the while mocking him with its promise, while the other voices of the wind urged him on or lamented his failure.

The wind had died to a whisper and the music had stopped when he found his way through a tangle of ruins into a more open space. He stood at the base of a tower. Like most, its higher reaches had long crumbled, with skeletal fingers all that remained reaching for the sky, or perhaps for a former glory forever out of reach. But the base had survived, still clad in the adamantine stone that had clothed many other such buildings.

Except part of the wall facing him had also now collapsed, opening the base of the tower into a cave; fairly recently from the look of the jagged edges of its ruin, less darkened by the winds and rains of the ages. The sun was behind the building and no rays penetrated its depths. He stared into its blackness, wondering.

Then the wind returned and with it the music; louder now, and coming from the cave before him.

Now it beckoned him like the mouth of death, and suddenly he felt afraid. Perhaps after all he had been drawn here in punishment for violating the resting place of the gods. But he drew up his courage and entered.

When his eyes adjusted to the gloom he saw that the stone sheath had surrounded a space largely filled by a metal structure, like a womb nurturing the precious life within, or perhaps the hard shell of a nut. He touched the metal, still partly encased in some strange material, mainly transparent, in parts crazed, in other parts gone completely. It is like an egg, left here to hatch; laid down by the gods or their dragons as their death drew nigh.

The music came from it. It had a peculiar structure, and when the wind blew over its protuberances it caused the music, like some enormous type of pipe or harp. Or like a chick calling from its egg to its mother, waiting to be hatched, hoping to be protected when it does. An now it calls to me.

He explored further and came to a large door. It too was strangely shaped, with large curved shapes over its surface, and he wondered again at its meaning. He pushed at it but it would not move.

This is an egg. It is protected from forces attacking from without. But what is within needs to get out. That is why it sings to me.

He looked again at its strange structure. The Gods were not infallible; their dead voices tell me that. Perhaps they knew their own fallibility and feared it. They mean this door to be pulled open. So these structures are handles: one might fall, just as their towers fell; two might crumble into rust; but only one needs survive.

He paused, his fear rising at the imminence of action. But if this is my death, what of it? I go to meet my wife and child in the land of shadows. The wife and child I failed. When I meet them there, will they welcome me? Or will they turn their backs and curse me to everlasting shame and loneliness?

He rested his hand on the cool metal, feeling the faint vibration of its song.

But what if it is more than my own death? What if what I am about to do is the end of the world?

He thought about the world. His life as it had been. The lives of his family. The world of his people.

A world of wolves howling in the night.

The world is already ended.

So he grasped one of the handles and pulled with all his might. But the door would not move. He tried the other handles in turn. One, weakened by age, snapped off, and he tumbled backwards onto the floor as it came free. The others held, but none of them would open the door.

He sat back on a boulder, thinking. Why would it call to me, if it does not seek to be freed? Does the chick in the egg call before its time? So perhaps only the worthy may free it: and I am not.

He thought about the gods, the city he was in, and how far beyond his understanding it all was.

The wisdom of the Gods far exceeds mine, and perhaps it is wisdom they demand as the key to their secrets. But for all their wisdom, they are gone: and all that is left are mortal men like me. If they were wise, they must have been wise enough to allow for that.

He examined the door more closely. There was a circular object on it, a handspan wide, that at first he had taken for decoration. The pattern on its surface was a ring of arrows pointing inwards. Unlike the rest of the door, which was made of one of the mysterious durable metals of the Gods, the circle appeared to be of fired clay.

Fired clay lasts forever. But it is brittle.

Like an eggshell.

The circle stood proud of the surface of the door. From his belt he took a hammer and chisel. Perhaps this is sacrilege, and I bring down on my own head the wrath of the gods. But the gods can punish me little more than they have already.

He placed the edge of his chisel against the circle where it met the surface of the door, and pounded. Once. Twice. Three times. Then on his fourth try there was a loud cracking sound, and the circle broke into pieces and fell from the door.

He looked at where it had been. But all he had achieved was a smaller circle. The part he had broken off was like the cap of a mushroom, with its stalk still embedded in the door and now flush with its surface, other than the sharp irregularity of its shattered stub. He peered at it more closely, feeling around it with the tip of his finger. The mushroom’s stalk was about a thumb’s length wide and fit precisely into a hole in the metal; there seemed to be a layer of some other material around it, but so thin he could not be sure.

The gods protect their egg fiercely. Yet it is an egg. So surely they want it hatched, for what else is an egg for?

He placed his chisel on the plug and pounded down. It did not crack, but on the second stroke it seemed to him that it had moved a fraction. On the third stroke it definitely moved, now half a finger joint’s length into the door. He paused, gathering his strength and his courage. He struck again with all his strength, and the plug moved a whole finger’s length down the hole.

A noise began to come from the hole and he stepped back in fright. Then there was a loud pop, and a wind from the gods howled into the hole, small leaves and other airborne material flying down with it into a depth he dared not gaze upon.

Eyes wide, he pushed his back to the wall and inched away from the door. Then he sat in a corner, watching the eddies of wind and dust and leaves swirling in a mad dance, as their last act before being swirled to their doom; listening for he knew not how long to the howling, wondering whether it was rage or joy. Perhaps the ghosts of the city now return to their home. Or leave ours.

Finally the noise died to a whistling, then to a whisper, and then was quiet. Still he sat there, afraid to move. But when nothing happened, slowly he stood and returned to the door. He peered down the hole but there was nothing to see but the darkness.

Grasping a handle he heaved with all his might, and this time there was a slight cracking sound as the door opened a short distance. It stuck, but he managed to lever it further with a branch. Its ancient hinges were well made: after this initial resistance, it took no more than half his strength to pull and push the door fully open.

At first he did not understand what he saw. The opening faced another wall of a strange, lustrous metal, with complex scenes engraved upon it. The metal wall did not fully span the space, but curved away to the left, leaving a gap opening onto more darkness. He would need a flame to light his way before he dared accept its invitation.

He stared at the engraving, puzzling at its strange images. That image, the one partway in from the left: it looks like this city as it is now. Not as it really looks, but similar: as if the artist knew what could happen but not what actually happened.

Then he gasped in understanding.

This is the history of the world!

He examined the engraving more closely, trying to divine its full meaning. At the left was the city as it must have been in its glory: its towers intact, people teeming in its streets, strange objects apparently flying in its sky.

Then there was a rain of fire from the sky, flames coursing through the city, unimaginable destruction. Then nothing but a few people remaining, their civilization nothing but decay until slowly, small settlements appeared on the Earth. Homes like the ones he knew. The descendants of the gods, slowly crawling their way out of the dust.

So it is true. Not gods, but Ancient Ones. Or if they were gods, then we are the descendants of gods.

Then in the center the frieze split into two. The top row continued as it was. The villages grew into towns; the towns into cities. At last, the cities began to rival those of the ancients themselves. But then some disaster came from the skies: a flame even worse than the original bursting forth from two tiny twin points in the sky. And this time there was nothing left.

His eyes returned to where one line had become two. Joining the second line were two images: the first, a circle of arrows pointing inward; the second, a miniature of the very wall and opening he now looked upon. Then the frieze continued as the top one had. Except now the towns appeared faster, the cities even more so, finally exceeding even the ancients in their magnificence. The flame from the sky still came, but this time there was a – what? Some kind of tunnel to a new world, safe from this new horror, filled with life and trees and people.

He felt he could grasp the meaning; that he should grasp the meaning. But neither mind nor body could bear more of the strangeness. As he sat leaning against the wall he gazed upon the revelations, wrestling with their meaning until sleep claimed him.

And he dreamed again, but this time of fire from the skies.

Tamorabi woke, stiff with cold, the image before his eyes too much like the images that had plagued his restless sleep. He chewed thoughtfully on some smoked meat and hard bread, not thinking about the images, just letting his eyes and mind wander over them.

As they did he became increasingly certain. Somehow the ancients knew their future. For all that they fell in their own disaster, they knew an even greater cataclysm is still to come. If history unfolds unaided there will be no escape, so they gave us a way out. If we take their gift our own path to godhood will be faster, perhaps fast enough that when the disaster strikes our far descendants will know how to escape it. The Ancient Ones left us this egg, so when men were able to understand its secrets they might find their salvation.

He stared at the black opening beckoning him with its dark promise. He prepared a torch and nervously approached. He dared not go too far, not alone in this place of dead darkness with nothing but his uncertain flame to guide the way. But he needed to know.

There were more engravings on the walls, some pictures, some strange lines and patterns. But his eyes were drawn more to what was arrayed on the shelves beneath them.

It was an array of glittering objects: jewels set in gold of such intricate patterns that he wondered how any man could have made them. A tube of hard metal with smooth crystals at either end; that when he looked through it made distant things appear close.

Then he looked at the nearest of the engravings, tracing their lines with his fingers.

His tribe were not ignorant nomads. He had been taught the counting. And that is what this was: counting. The simplest diagrams were easy to understand, becoming increasingly complex until he had no idea what they meant.

But these first ones! Simple strokes: first one, then two, then three and so on. So these must be their symbols for those numbers. And this their symbol for adding two numbers together!

Then he staggered as the meaning crashed into his brain; that the jewels and gold were the least of this place’s treasures. This is a school! It starts at the level of a child, then leads beyond, perhaps all the way to all the wisdom of the gods themselves!

He stood in stunned silence, looking around him. The space was indeed curved like an egg but large, his height plus half again, while three men could lie head to toe along its length. Still, surely not big enough to hold all the knowledge of the gods. But in the far wall was another door. Trembling, he approached it and studied its surface. Like the other door it was made of metal, but this time there were neither inscriptions nor handles. The outer door opened outwards. The chick pushes out of its egg. Perhaps this door is the same.

Tamorabi leant against the door, pushing with all his might. And as before, after a brief resistance it opened a crack. It took him only a few minutes to open it fully into the space beyond.

He thrust his torch into the gloom. He looked upon a metal cavern shrinking into the darkness. It seemed empty of treasures itself, but what he saw made his breath catch in his throat. More doors, this time like the one outside. Not an egg. It is a nest! The Gods have left us a nest of eggs!

He could not see far down the cavern nor tell how many eggs remained. And finally his courage failed him; he had none left to take another step onward. He just stood there, staring down the cavern as at a future stretching before him whose end he could not see. And he wondered at the past, at what wisdom or magic had led the ancients to create this place.

Finally he stepped back, pulled the door shut, and collapsed on the floor with his back against a wall.

Tamorabi pondered. Is this why I am here? Have the Gods been waiting, looking down from the sky into the realm of men, until they found… me? Did they choose me, then drive me here to find this, to restore their glories? Are they that cruel? Or was it their last forlorn hope and I chose them? They did not drive me here with the whip of my grief, they merely abandoned their nest here and died, in the hope someone would one day find it and divine its secrets.

He was a humble hunter. His tribe were not of the Concord but nor were they its enemies. Their lands overlapped the ill-defined edges of the Concord, and if that sometimes led to friction, theft and murder on both sides, more often it led to trade; sometimes even the exchange of sons or daughters in marriage.

So Tamorabi knew of the Sages, even if to him they were near mythic titans with minds dwelling in the sky. He knew what he needed to do.

Tamorabi left the Temple, for Temple it must have been, and stood outside in the city. The towers rose as grimly and as dead, and the cold wind whistled its way down the streets of ruin; but did he hear, in the whispering song of the wind, a subtle undertone of joy? Had the eons-long wailing dirge of the Ancients at last been answered?

He looked around him. It was unlikely anyone else would come here, but he carted rubble and brush over the entrance to the Temple and arranged it so it looked as ancient and dead as the rest. Then at last he retraced the steps of his search, and left the city.

Frenislan the Wise sat in his office, reading the theses his students had submitted for his examination, occasionally jotting a mark or a comment on them. Sometimes he guffawed at a childish fallacy or pompous expression; more rarely, he pursed his lips at an unexpected insight. His true love was his own reading and research, but he did not begrudge his role in teaching the next generation. He saw himself as part of a noble history: a branch on the growing tree of humanity’s quest for knowledge. Perhaps not the most magnificent branch, but a branch nonetheless, connecting the roots of the past to an unknown but glorious future. And if he were not the strongest branch on the tree, who knew what delectable fruits might come from it in the future? Sometimes the smallest plant bore the sweetest berries.

His town was a small one, little regarded in the Concord, assuming anybody beyond its immediate neighbors and the scribes of the Archives even knew it existed. His title of The Wise had been given to him by the townsfolk, who had been impressed by his judgements in settling their disputes. He imagined that the great Sages in the magnificent cities deeper inside the Concord would laugh at his title as much as his clothes, should he ever be introduced to them. But he did not care. He was what he was and thought himself, if not the wisest of Sages, then wise enough. He would work for his allotted span on Earth and leave it a better place than when he had arrived.

He lifted his head at a gentle tapping on the entrance to his office. A student stood there diffidently, head bowed.

“Speak.”

“A stranger to see you, Master.”

“What kind of stranger?”

“A dirty one, Master. A hunter, I would think, from far away.”

“My regular court is tomorrow. Tell him to come then. If he has money there are plenty of inns. If not and he is a hunter as you say, he can camp among the woods in his usual manner.”

The student nodded and withdrew.

Frenislan was engrossed in a particularly intriguing paragraph, knowing there must be a flaw in its reasoning but unable to pin it down, when the gentle tapping was repeated. The same student stood there and Frenislan frowned.

“You again? What is it, another visitor?”

“No Master, the same. He implores you to see him now. He says he has journeyed far and long with information of the greatest import. He says he must speak with you in private.”

“Well? Evaluate. Does he seem to you mad? Dangerous? Deluded? Or might there be something to it?”

The girl shrugged. “He seems tired and agitated, but sane. He seems sad but not aggressive. But such men have close horizons, and can see import in the trivial, and imagine their personal problems that loom so large to them will seem equally large to others.”

Frenislan smiled. “So you have known many such men, that you feel qualified to judge him so?”

The girl blushed, and stammered, “My… my apologies, Master. No… no, I have merely heard, and deduced.”

He waved his hand in forgiveness. “You do not need to apologize. Merely know your limits. If you are to become a Sage you must recognize where knowledge ends and opinion begins. But your perception and logic do you credit in this case.”

Now the girl smiled, but blushed even more. “Shall I tell him to return tomorrow?”

“No… no… It is probably nothing, as you say. But hear me. Another part of being a Sage is tending the threads of friendship that bind the Concord. The man thinks his quest is important enough to interrupt a Sage. If it proves unimportant, still he will be grateful that I listened to him, and when he returns home he will tell his people that we treat even poor strangers well and with respect. But if it is important and I delay him until tomorrow, he will be angry and I will have erred. So best to see him now. Have the guards make sure he is completely disarmed – check his boots! – then show him in.”

Again the student nodded humbly and withdrew.

Frenislan sat up straighter in his chair, tidied his desk, folded his hands and waited, a picture of serene authority. In a few minutes the girl came back, escorting a large and muscular man. Frenislan examined him. As the girl had said, he looked like a hunter, with rough clothes, long dark hair and windburned skin. His eyes had the faraway look of men used to wilderness and space, but their blue depths reflected echoes of deep and complex passions, as if even now his mind was torn between sorrow, excitement and dread.

“Greetings, friend! What is your name, and what is your need?”

“Greetings, oh Great Sage. I am Tamorabi. I am a hunter, not of your Concord, though my people consider ourselves your friends. But I have made a great discovery and know no better place to turn.”

Mightier Sages might have questioned his sobriquet ‘the Wise’, but Frenislan had a quick mind, which rapidly joined the dots between ‘hunter’, ‘wilderness’ and ‘discovery’, and he leaned forward. “You have found some artifact of the Ancients?!”

“I have found more than an artifact, Great Sage.”

“Speak then, friend Tamorabi.”

“I was drawn to one of the Graves of the Gods, the bones of a mighty city where few dare enter. Do not ask how or why. Know only I was drawn there, perhaps by the Gods themselves. Men say the ghosts of the Gods sing there, Sage; singing a dirge of the loss of their world. It is true. I heard it. But then I heard something else. Beneath the mourning was a song. A song of hope, it seemed to me. A song that called to me, as if it had waited for me across the ages.”

The man stopped, as if exhausted by his speech after so long and hard a journey, and Frenislan felt a twinge of disappointment. The girl was right. A superstitious hunter, hearing music in a dead city. The wind in the ruins. Perhaps of some interest to the study of sound. But probably not worth a journey to find out.

“So you feel the Gods sang to you? What did they say?”

“Perhaps they did not sing to me at all. Perhaps they just sang, hoping someone would hear. I heard. So I followed the song. It led me to a ruin, where one of the ancient walls had recently crumbled. I was sore afraid, but my death means little to me now so I explored. There was a door, sealed against the world. I broke its seal. Air rushed in, through some magic of the Ancients. Then the door opened. And inside… inside were… wonders.”

Frenislan leapt to his feet, thoughts of serene authority gone. “Wonders, you say! What wonders?”

The hunter reached into the pockets of his vest, and placed three small objects on the desk. “These are just a token that I speak the truth. There is more. Far more.”

Frenislan eagerly examined the objects. One was a globe of some hard, lustrous metal that looked like a model of the world, which the Sages knew was a sphere; one was a tube with glass at both ends; another a sheet of metal with geometric patterns and symbols engraved upon it.

“Take the tube, and look out your window through it,” Tamorabi suggested.

He did so and jumped. He took it away from his eye, put it back again. Though it, distant objects looked much closer.

“More, you say! What do you think this place is?”

“I am no Sage, my lord. But I have puzzled at the images on the walls, and puzzled at the artifacts. I moved nothing except these tokens. It seems to me to have been made by the Ancients themselves, made to survive all the uncounted eons since their deaths: made so that we may recover their secrets.”

“How… how big is this place?”

“It is a curved room, oval like an egg, taller than a man but less than two; about double that in length. But…”

“But?”

“There is another door at its end. It opens onto a corridor, leading I know not where, for I dared not go further. But I saw enough. There are more such eggs. How many, I cannot say.”