Golden light exploded everywhere, surrounding the galactic jet, all fifty thousand lightyears in length, with a great cylinder of brilliance, from which complex, living shapes emerged.
Such strange, beautiful, wonderful beings, or perhaps divinities.
At the same time, with a strange outpouring of energy that caused the innards of every crystal warrior to shake, a scarlet blaze enveloped the Shadow Gate, and lanced along the darkness beyond the galactic edge and the dark-matter halo that imprisoned it.
Gold from one direction, red from another.
Two new forces upon the stage.
=We are here, humanity.=
From golden mu-space they came: huge entities that once had been Labyrinths and ships and Pilots, long transcendent, long combined, long become something greater.
<<We tried to warn you. Now we help.>>
Emerging out of scarlet fire around Shadow Gate and the black bridge beyond, newly returned from whatever unknown universe they called home, came a second force. These were glowing lattice-beings, vast and wonderful and powerfuclass="underline" the distant descendants of Zajinets.
Gold, the lightning that gleamed like mu-space.
Red, the fires that shone like blood.
Both forces of newcomers fell upon the darkness, attacking together.
And the darkness split apart beneath their joint attack.
—Now, my warriors!
Kenna’s yell reverberated inside three billion crystal bodies: all that survived of her armies. Blue was the glow illuminating space as they and the surviving war leaders brought the zero-point energy to bear.
All of them, getting ready to fire together.
—NOW.
Cataclysm engulfed the darkness.
The galactic jet burned as the black bridge beyond exploded, spinning off into the depths of intergalactic space, shrivelling and dying. Countless parts tumbling, crumbling, becoming dust. The darkness shattered, it tore, it dissipated; and perhaps in ways that no one left alive could hear – not with the Trickster gone – it screamed.
Dead and sundered, its connection to the bridge-head useless.
Beyond Shadow Gate, the darkness split away from the galaxy’s dark halo, unravelling, perhaps all the way back to its beginning, to its origin beyond the cosmic void. Its route was destroyed, and perhaps the darkness itself was dead or dying; but either way, it could no longer reach the galaxy.
Baryonic-matter life was safe.
The darkness was defeated.
EPILOGUE
HOME GALAXY, 1005300 AD
The gods that were Roger and Gavriela floated free near the galactic core, watching the greater beings that were Labyrinth and Zajinet descendants as they worked together, repairing damage to the galaxy: refurbishing suns and tidying up their configurations.
Multitudes of crystal humans also watched, though many had returned to Valhöll-now-Earth, or made other worlds their home for now. This was the aftermath of victory.
It was no surprise when Kenna and Rathulfr flew towards them; the surprise was that the former war queen and warrior held hands as they did so. They smiled as they drew close and hovered.
—We did it. Kenna gestured to the greater gods at work. Thanks to our friends, fulfilling prophecy.
—Prophecy? asked Gavriela.
—Nine realms on three levels of reality, Kenna told them. There was always a third universe, not to mention glowing Múspellheim, which always fit badly into the scheme.
Was that a hint that the darkness, mediating through Stígr a million years ago, had seen in his half-believed myths the possibility of its demise?
But Rathulfr had a different question to ask.
—Sharp still believes he can resurrect Harij, Magni is headed for Andromeda to fetch his people back, and Freya seems determined to personally thank every one of three billion people that fought along-side us. Kenna and I wish to learn from our omnipotent friends. He gestured towards the great beings at work, fixing the galaxy. But what of you two? What are your plans?
Gavriela and Roger looked at each other.
—We have other questions, said Gavriela.
—Like whether war is the only way to interact with darkness, said Roger.
So, even Kenna and Rathulfr could look surprised.
They floated in space, mulling this over.
—You think we could have avoided all this? Kenna gestured at the fading jet, among which crystalline corpses floated like clouds of tiny diamonds. You think if there had been another way, we would not have taken it?
Roger and Gavriela shook their heads.
—Ragnarökkr was inevitable, said Roger. It’s the aftermath that’s negotiable.
All four turned their gazes away from the galactic centre, to the greater universe beyond.
In a trillion years, two trillion years, as Kenna had told her warriors, the distant galaxies would no longer be visible: the cosmos would have expanded so far, pulling galaxies apart by such unimaginable distances, that no light from any galaxy would ever reach another.
Then the darkness would rule.
—What if the darkness, said Gavriela, wanted to link galaxies for good, so they would not be sundered apart?
Kenna blinked.
—For good?
So great a power might simply crush baryonic-matter lifeforms because such life seemed too trivial and worthless to care about, as humanity once treated microbes.
—And your intentions? asked Rathulfr. Your specific intentions, my friends?
Roger smiled, and took hold of Gavriela’s hand.
—We’re thinking of travelling.
They looked along the ruined jet, in the direction of Shadow Gate where so many fell. And Gavriela smiled.
—It will be an adventure, if nothing else.
Kenna looked at Rathulfr, then back at Roger and Gavriela.
—That much is certain.
—You mean, said Roger, it’s predestined?
The four of them laughed, floating in vacuum.
And Roger and Gavriela turned away, still holding hands, as spacetime whirled around them, lighting up with a brilliant sapphire glow.
—Go well.
—And you.
They flew towards the void.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
& FINAL NOTE
When it comes to using recent historical figures in fiction, I agree with Barbara Kingsolver: an author does not have free rein. My depiction of Alan Turing, in this and the previous volume, relied heavily on the superlative biography by Andrew Hodges. It is my interpretation, a fictional rendering and not the real person, transformed to serve the needs of the narrative. The world owes the real Turing an immense debt, not to mention an apology.
Peter Hennessy’s analysis of 1950s Britain, Having It So Good, was particularly helpful. The savagery of continental Europe following World War II, as hinted at in Chapter 2, was too brutal for me to detail here. A conversation with historian Keith Lowe prior to the publication of his Savage Continent, followed by the book itself, formed a shocking eye-opener.
In Chapter 30, the descriptions of termites and weaver ants (including the phrase, ‘sending their old women to war’) come directly from E.O. Wilson’s essay In The Company Of Ants. The Chapter 12 quotation regarding gastrulation comes from the biologist Lewis Wolpert.
The Bach piece mentioned in Chapter 41 is Badinerie from his Orchestral Suite No.2 in B Minor.