Chapter 43

Rain was suspicious of Avan's intentions. Was he trying to rope her into another fish-brained scheme to “save the world” or some such? Most likely. It would also most likely put her and Hammer's life at risk again.

Rain remembered that Garon had asked her for help. That tangled ball of realms interacting in such a way as to send a message to her, showing her that they were under attack. How would they stop that? Was she just an agent of Garon? A single cell in a huge organism floating through some shadowy void? It was beginning to seem that way.

She followed Rajin through the tunnel, who was eager on Avan's heels. Hammer followed behind all of them, still grasping that shiny wooden sword, still with that pained looked of hunger on his face. Did he really have a craving for sand?

The first thing she noticed as they stepped out was how this place seemed warped. There was the regular directional pull that she noticed earlier, as if a slight but insistent wind blew across the landscape, apply just that little bit of force to make everything pull westwards, but that wasn't what drew her immediate attention.

There was a pillar of damaged reality rising up from the ground into the infinity of space above. It wouldn't be visible to anyone who couldn't shape haze, but it had the look of a fresh cut, the knife having just been removed and the blood only just beginning to scab over. A wound that was beginning to heal. This had a different feel to the one that Tera had caused. That one had felt like a hole. The comparison was the difference between being bitten by a mosquito and being cut by Hammer's sword. The blade, or whatever had intruded had been withdrawn, or pushed back, more likely. Avan was right and this was what Garon had shown her. And she had to fix it.

She turned to Hammer. The look on her face, wide-eyed, torn, must have prompted him.

“We're going to do it, aren't we.” It was a statement, not a question, but she nodded anyway. Beside them Avan smiled sadly.

“I'm sorry to have to show you this, but I hope you can see why. I think that being forced to trap Tera and find someone to release him was part of the lead up to this.”

What did he mean by that? Did Garon force people to do things? Or was Garon the product of all its constituent parts? She didn't understand.

“What, exactly, is Garon?” She was still looking at the point of the breach, unsettled, but she could feel Hammer watching her and see Rajin's tail swaying slowly from side to side as she looked at different things in the camp they had arrived at.

“That's an interesting question, and the short answer is 'I don't know.' Though I have some theories.”

She turned to look at the ancient man and kept staring until he continued.

“At first I thought of Garon as an ant colony. Ant colonies have thousands of ants which work together to get things done. They can accomplish some pretty intelligent things by cooperating, as I'm sure you know. No ant is smart enough to understand everything that's happening on the ant colony, but they all follow simple instructions, instinctual behaviours, to achieve their goals.

“Slowly I came to the realisation that some ants – yes, here I'm using ants as a metaphor for people, please excuse the comparison – some ants were occasionally pushed to do things they usually wouldn't. These things typically are very important, I expect you would have experienced a lot of this over the past few days. This leads me to believe that there is some central will somewhere which is augmented with the interplay between the rest of the, for want of better terminology, body.

“But that is still inaccurate, because Garon seems to also act through the ants, for example, mounting defences again invading colonies.

“There is another reason the ant metaphor is poor is that if you took all the people on one planet, such as yours, you would have sufficient people for a whole bunch of ant colonies. But then look at your realm. How many planets are there in there? You'll never be able to see them all, and many of them have life of their own living on them. I know because I've been there. There are even bubbles of what could be termed life living in the fires of stars. Then consider how many individual realms there are. Granted, some of them are smaller than yours, others larger, but there are dozens of core realms, and then countless child realms.

“The ant colony metaphor doesn't describe the sheer computing power that Garon has.

“Then there are beings like Cennon. I only discovered that they could exist when it attacked! I don't know how to get rid of it for good. Imagine if it is like Garon, which is probably is. Does the interaction of Garon and Cennon contribute to the mind of some greater being?

“What is Garon? I don't know, but what I do know is that if Garon dies, so do we.”

She was a little taken aback at Avan's seeming anger. It was clearly not directed at her, rather at his own frustration with his understanding and lack of knowledge. He had clearly mulled over this for a long time, to no avail. From the sounds of things, he understood the workings of a great many things.

“Okay, I can't speak for Rajin, but I guess we have to help. I should never have come to look.”

“I'll take care of Rajin. Rain, could you go to the monastery, over there. Ask someone to help you out when you get there; I'm not sure who's in charge. Hammer and Rajin, could you come with me?”

She watched the three walking off. Hammer gave her a small wave and an uncertain smile. Suddenly, she was alone in an unfamiliar place, and she felt it.

She made her way to the monastery. It was about five hundred metres from the village proper, where they had arrived, and she used a funny looking tower, which Avan had pointed to, as her guide. She assumed that was her target.

Wood smoke filled her nostrils and she almost pleasant scent of herbivorous animal dung. Almost pleasant in the sense that it was not as disgusting as a carnivore's dung. There were creatures a work hauling logs around to construct some kind of fence or wall. They were like the one Avan had shown her – Furgin, if she remembered correctly. What had he called them? Mules, that was the word. These things were mules.

She walked further in. For what appeared to be the makings of a war camp, security looked rather lax.

She took a closer look at the people working here. They all appeared a little odd. This one was a little elongated, thin with limbs that were slightly too long and a face resembling that of these mule things. Perhaps it was part mule. The thought made her giggle a little. Another one had an extra pair of arms. She saw that some of the creatures she had taken for animals before were actually helping out just as much the more humanoid there. Like Rajin, she mused, these creatures have come from somewhere else. Perhaps all of these people have come from elsewhere to help push back Cennon. Were they all like her? Could they all shape haze?

What appeared to be a solidified shadow popped into existence beside the monastery, nearby shadows deepening in response for a heartbeat. Vaguely humanoid, but difficult to focus on. Arms hung down almost to the feet, and curved slightly inwards. Rain could tell the fingers ended in hard, straight claw-like nails. The shadows flickered again, and the thing was suddenly facing towards her, but she didn't see it turn, and the cloak it wore was perfectly still. A second later it was right in front of her, within talking distance. And she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“I am Cado.” It said bluntly in a metallic, yet clearly feminine voice. “Who are you?”

She was a little taken aback by the rude quality of this stranger's tone. After a second she realised the perhaps that was just how this particular sort of creature was. It was waiting for a response.

“Rain,” she said when she realised. A little flustered, she continued, “sorry, I'm new.”

“Don't apologise. Your newness is obvious. Come.” Cado floated away in a succession of jumps, sending shadows skittering around the clearing surrounding the monastery.

Rain had to remind herself that this creature probably didn't understand the customs and mores she was used to. Still, she bristled with annoyance. She hoped this person would be put in charge of her. Actually, she hoped no-one would be put in charge of her. Although she didn't have a problem with authority, that didn't mean she liked being told what to do. Hammer didn't mind, be she preferred to make up her own mind.

How was Cado moving? She clearly wasn't walking, and she seemed to be moving those many tiny distances as an affordance to Rain, but it would be nice to know how she did that. In fact, maybe that was the only way Cado could move. Perhaps it was as natural as walking was to her. Were those longer jumps similar to running? Was that why her voice sounded artificial? It was created by digital movements, rather than the smooth analogue movements that she was used to?

She wondered if she could do that too. Perhaps she would try it some time, for now she hurried off after the dark apparition.

Cado led her into the monastery proper, which, to her eyes accustomed to buildings of colossal scale seemed rather modest in size. Beyond the entrance hall was the cloister, and it was to the watch tower she had seen earlier that she was guided.

The tower stood in one corner of the cloister, and measured ten by ten meters, reaching four storeys high, and was constructed entirely of wood. Stacked tree trunks made up the walls, sliced in half longwise and held together an inner framework of crossed diagonal beams. It was clearly newer than the rest of the monastery, which, despite well maintained, showed signs of having been built in the distant past.

The staircase lead to the top, which was little more than a covered timber platform, the roof angled so that water would flow off. It was sealed with a black tarry substance which could have once been another colour.

On the platform was a group large enough to almost fill it. Rain realised that the platform was slanted slightly so that if everyone was the same height, they could stand shoulder to shoulder and behind each other to get a good view of the column she had seen earlier.

“These are the new Pushers,” Cado told her softly, “a Pusher's task is to push back on Cennon when it tries to enter. Last time Cennon attacked, we pushed hard enough to drive it back. It has taken Cennon hundred of thousands of years to catch up again. We have a higher number of defenders now, but we don't know if Cennon will push harder having been rebuffed. It's already tested the waters, but was driven back by Plarit, who is now in a deep sleep, exhausted. Plarit is the de-facto leader of the Pushers, but I am filling in until he recovers.”

Rain was paying close attention. She had been right about what she needed to do. Push Cennon back. But how?

“How do we push?”

“You push by gathering Haze and forming a sort of a shield. Then you use that shield to push Cennon back. It's possible to do that from anywhere, but this is where Cennon is closest, so most find it easier to focus on that line. Even for the more experienced of us, that is more effective because less Haze is wasted traversing the distance.

“Cennon will try to stop us from pushing back and will send creatures in to attack us. Our job is not to stop them; that's the warriors' job. A few of us are designated to drive the creatures off should they get too close, but generally we focus on the breach.”

“So, you'll be pushing also?”

“Definitely. Now I must go.”

“Wait! What should I do?”

Cado winked out of existence without voicing a response, the shadows responding to her passing with a flurry of movement.

The sky was beginning to grow dark, the glow from those clouds fading slowly, and Rain was not in the mood to meet people. She went back downstairs to the monastery proper, and searched around for somewhere to sleep.

She stumbled across a large dormitory laid out with beds. Those nearest the door were a little messed up and most had items on them, staking a claim. She hadn't thought to bring anything of her own, not even something to eat. She had been planning on looking then leaving. She found an unclaimed bed near the back of the room and slept.