Chapter Forty
<Are you prepared, Bahzell? And you, Walsharno?>
This time, the deep, rolling voice echoing through Bahzell’s mind wasn’t a courser’s. It was the voice of Tomanak Orfro, God of War and Chief Captain of the Gods of Light.
Bahzell didn’t even blink, but his mobile ears twitched, moving in perfect parallel with Walsharno’s to point forward. The hradani felt the courser’s reaction like an echo of his own, yet Walsharno took the cascading, musical thunder of that voice far more calmly than Bahzell had taken his own first conversation with Tomanak. There was a flavor of intense respect to his emotions, a touch of wonder and delight, but not one of awe.
<And isn’t that after being a silly question?> Bahzell thought back at his deity. <And here was I, thinking as how we were all after riding out for a picnic lunch!>
Walsharno didn’t share the apprehension bordering on horror which Bahzell’s tart exchanges with his god tended to evoke in two-legged audiences. He continued to trot briskly forward, swishing his tail to discourage a particularly irritating fly, and looked on with amused interest, perched like another viewpoint in Bahzell’s mind.
<Bahzell,> the deep, resonant voice observed with a sort of pained amusement of its own, <I realize you’re not exactly the most conventional Sword I’ve ever had, but you might want to work on your social skills for the moments when we have these little conversations.>
<So I might, but I’m thinking that if ever I did, you might be after getting all confused and wondering if you’d the right fellow on the other end.>
<Oh, I doubt that, Brother,> Walsharno’s thought put in. <I doubt very much that He could possibly have two champions as irritating as you are.>
<Just like you to be after making up to Himself just because he’s a god, and all,> Bahzell retorted, and the earthquake rumble of Tomanak’s chuckle rolled through him. Then the god continued, but his voice was softer, somehow.
<I see that you two are as well suited to one another as any of us of the Light could have hoped, my children. That’s good. You have far to go together. Be glad in one another and treasure what lies between you.>
<Aye, that we will,> Bahzell replied, his own “voice” gentler than it had been a moment before. He felt Walsharno’s unspoken agreement behind his own, then gave himself a mental shake. <Still and all,> he pointed out in something much more like his normal style, <that sounds as if it’s after suggesting we’ve a way to go yet after this little unpleasantness as is waiting up ahead of us somewhere.>
<I wish I could promise you that, Bahzell,> Tomanak said seriously. <Unfortunately, I can’t. Not even a god can tell you what will be. All we can say is what may be.>
<Indeed?> Walsharno’s ears shifted. <Forgive me, Tomanak, but I had always assumed a god could see the future as readily as the past.>
<The problem, Walsharno,> Tomanak said, <is that in reality, there is no future or past. All time, all events, coexist. Mortals live in what you might think of as a moving window that briefly illuminates what they conceive of as separate moments in that single reality. It is a factor of their mortality that they cannot see it whole and entire, and so they order what they do see and experience into a past, a present, and a future.>
Bahzell frowned, intrigued almost despite himself. A portion of his awareness remained firmly focused on the movement of Walsharno’s muscles under him, the caress of the late afternoon breeze as the day wound towards twilight, the jingle of mail and weapons harnesses, the creak of saddle leather, and the slightly dusty smell of grass crushed under the hooves of coursers and warhorses alike. But most of his attention was focused on the question it had never occurred to him to ask and on the answer he would never have anticipated, if he had asked.
<I’m not so very sure as I understand any of that,> he put in, <but I’m mortal positive I’m not understanding all of it.>
<Nor do I,> Walsharno agreed. <Are You saying gods can see all of time in a single sweep? Because, if that’s the case—if You see what we call the past and the future simultaneously—then why do You also say You can only tell us what may be, and not what will?>
There was no disrespect or challenge in the courser’s question. He accepted what Tomanak had said, as a yearling accepted the decrees and explanations of his herd stallion. He was simply seeking explanation, not demanding that Tomanak justify what he had already said.
<Mortals think in terms of causes and effects,> Tomanak replied. <And insofar as mortal affairs are concerned, that’s a useful and effective way to visualize what they experience. But the truth is that a given cause does not have one fixed, inevitable result, as mortals persist in thinking that it does. All possible outcomes of an act, or an event, are equally real and valid, Walsharno. Mortals observe and experience only one as their moving window travels across the moment of resolution, but all are present and real … both “before” and “after” that perception and experience mortals define as “now.”>
<My brain is after hurting,> Bahzell observed dryly, and Tomanak chuckled again in the back of the link he and Walsharno shared. <If I’m understanding you aright, then are you after saying that whatever it may be we’re thinking happened didn’t? That we’re only after imagining it did because we’ve not the eyes—or the minds—to be seeing what truly did?>
<No,> Tomanak replied. <The problem is that mortals lack the proper frame of reference to visualize all that’s bound up in what you think of as “now,” or “the present.” In a way, that’s the very thing that makes you so valuable in the struggle between the Light and the Dark, Bahzell. In a fashion I can’t explain to you because of the difference in our frames of reference, mortals define events and will ultimately define whether the Light or the Dark triumphs in this universe by the framework they impose upon the reality they cannot fully observe.>
He obviously recognized Bahzell’s and Walsharno’s confusion, for he went on.
<Think of it this way. “History” is a mortal creation, a procession of mortal experiences which moves through the interconnected past and future. It … selects which single outcome “occurs” out of the collision of all possible causes and all possible effects for each given event. The word “until” is another mortal creation, a consequence of the way in which you perceive time and events, but “until” that moment of mortal experience of an event, all of its possible outcomes happen. Indeed, if you wish to think of it this way, the perception of each individual mortal creates its own individual universe for every outcome of every event.>
<But in that case,> Walsharno thought slowly, <there must be as many universes as there are possible outcomes.>
<Precisely,> Tomanak replied simply, as if the staggeringly complex and preposterous implication were perfectly reasonable. <As I told you once before, Bahzell, the Light and the Dark are engaged in a struggle across more universes than you can possibly imagine. You simply didn’t realize that it is you mortals who create those universes. And, in the “end,” it will be the balance of all those universes, the preponderance of them, in which Light and Dark have triumphed which determines the fate of them all.>
<Now I know my head is after hurting,> Bahzell thought after a moment. <But if I’ve puzzled out even the least tiniest bit of what it is you’re after saying, then you can’t be telling us what will be after happening because we’ve not yet reached that moment with our “window”?>
<Exactly,> Tomanak agreed, <and yet not complete. Mortals believe we gods see all of time and space and that, if we chose, we could tell them what will happen. But they’re only partly correct. We do see all of time and space, and because we see all possible outcomes, we cannot tell you which one of them you will experience. We could tell you which outcomes are more likely, or less, but we cannot tell you which one will be for you, because all of them will happen somewhere.