You are learning to ask questions too late. You look up, then back at the queen. “There weren’t just lanterns in that universe,” you say.
Civilizations come to terms with the heat death of the universe in various ways, if they do at all. A small selection of possibilities:
Some of them attempt to rewrite the laws of entropy, as though statistical mechanics were amenable to postmodern narrative techniques.
Some of them research ways to punch through into other universes, anthropic principle notwithstanding. It is rarely the case that other universes are more hospitable than the current one.
Some of them build monuments of the rarest materials that they can devise, even knowing that everything will be pulverized to the same singularity punctuation. Not all of the art thus created is particularly worthy of the effort put into it, but neither will there be anyone left to judge.
And some of them simply commit mass suicide, on the grounds that they would prefer to choose the manner of their passing. At this end of time, weapons of incandescent destruction are commonplace. We may assume that a sufficiently determined civilization can contrive to obtain some.
Each of these trajectories ends in darkness.
“You want the captives to burn forever,” you say. “Then, as a corollary, the people you put into those lanterns will never escape through death.”
“You’re learning about consequences,” the queen says. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
You know why the queen chose you for this task, and not some other, although it’s not inconceivable that there are backups. She cut you from the paper of a lantern, sacrificing its light forever. You remember being raked by fire, and the shearing scissors. You remember being constructed without a heart.
Knight of Pyres. Combustion. She needs you to light the lanterns for her.
A heart isn’t what you have. It’s what you do, the philosopher-king had said. You wonder what would have happened if someone had said it to you a lifetime ago. It’s unlikely that you would have listened. Only now, as you behold a universe comprehensively dissipated, do you realize what service you have rendered all this time.
“I can’t do this for you,” you say.
“So you are no longer content to be a knight,” the queen says, unnervingly composed. The queen’s hands. “I advise you to consider your decision carefully. Once you start making choices of your own, you move into the realm of consequence, and in most matters you cannot erase mistakes, or responsibility. Are you certain this is what you want? Our world slowly waning to a forever black?” Her mouth curves as you hesitate.
You raise your gun.
She raises the scepter.
You’re faster. And you don’t shoot her, anyway. You shoot the scepter. It goes up in a hellscream of fire and smoke and uncoiled volition.
The queen doesn’t let go, and the fire spreads to her hand. “In the darkness you will be outnumbered,” she says, raising her voice over the crackling. “People will attempt to relight the lanterns themselves. They will seek weapons deadlier than Combustion. They will come to you and beg in words like broken wings for any pittance of light. You will have to stand vigil alone in the forever night, listening, in case someone in the mass of shadow is clever enough to undo what you have done and start the furnace of souls.”
“Drop the scepter,” you cry. The gun is specific in its effect. This is an airless world and all fire is, in a sense, artificially sustained. She could survive a little while yet, one-armed.
“The realm of consequence,” she says remindingly.
Time does not pass here as it does in the world beyond, but it passes quickly enough when it cares to. The queen burns up like a candle, like a torch, like a star of guttering ambitions.
The queen’s people haven’t yet figured out what has transpired, but they will know soon enough.
You settle back, gun smoking endlessly, and wait as the darkness settles over the world by smothering degrees. You have a long vigil ahead of you: time to begin.
There is nothing left of this story but a whispering condensate of shadow, and a single unknight standing apart.
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