Chapter 17: Noblesse
"Where…where am I?" Cornelius looks around. The sky is broken into a kaleidoscope of colors. The ground has given way, and he looks over the edge into a bottomless abyss. Cornelius feels the vertigo warping his senses. He steps back to center himself while trying to keep the rising bile down.
Questions. So many questions forming in his head. How did I get here? What happened to Cereus? Did he kill the little boy?
"Dad!" His son's scream fills him with a rush of adrenaline and his mind clears.
Wilbur is crumpled on the floor, his eyes roving in his sockets. They are filled with fear. Cornelius hears him mumble, "Why are we here? We're not supposed to be here!"
"Ah." Nothing but an audible exhale, but it set Cornelius on edge. It came from the stone statue that sat on the throne. A stone statue with the all too familiar mask.
"So you have finally come." The voice is weak but the statue begins to move slowly, his hand around his head, untying the mask from his face. A youthful one with silver locks of hair around his eyes. "It's good to finally see you again, Cornelius. Wilbur."
"It was you? You're the one that pushed me off the edge!" Wilbur exclaims.
"I guess I will have to apologize for that."
"You're Gentian, aren't you?" Cornelius asks. "I thought you were dead?"
"I haven't heard that name…in such a very long time." He looks to the sky. "But then again, time has no meaning here."
Gentian walks around them looking at the colors. "There is neither sun nor moon. Time has been devoured by the Scar. This perimeter around the throne. This is the last vestige of existence."
Cornelius heart sinks. This was not in the predictions of even the brightest minds of his time. This is not the heat death of the universe. This is not the collapse of all mass. This is true oblivion. This is hopelessness.
"And to answer your question, Doctor. I was on the brink of death on that day Cereus stabbed me. But time ended, and I was saved by the eternal stillness. By the Scar. The beginning and also the end."
"The beginning?" Cornelius could hear his mind tick away again, trying to put the pieces of the mystery in their rightful place.
"The Scar is a mad-made inevitability, you see. A paradox, not unlike yourself, grandfather." Gentian's eyes bear into him with its golden light. "The man loved by time."
"What are you talking about?"
"Dad…I think he's talking about that…when Lewis and me went back in time."
"Wilbur is right, Cornelius. I see it from here. It was the slip of your foot, you see." Gentian raises his hand and the image of that night comes into focus. The drenching rain. The singular light over the stoop. His mother looking down onto the baby in her arms.
"Had you not scared her off…she would have taken you back. Time had other plans for you though, and you created the time machine…" His mother hears the scoffing of Lewis' shoe on the wet stairs. She places him back into the basket quickly before running away. "Your very nature is locked in time. Inevitable. And that is why your blood could counter the effects of that mysterious disease."
"An illness." The puzzle is unraveling before him. Cornelius continues, "Without a pathogen or any known source."
"Yes, Doctor."
"And a rip in space, devouring time," Cornelius whispers.
"Yes. You see it now." The image distorts and there is Wilbur as the Golden Emperor, attacking with his power. The sky is ablaze with the destruction of the starships. "The ripping of space opened the Scar. The Scar devoured time, stealing life from humans in all the ages."
"And my blood stabilized that."
"Yes, bestowing the gift of time…on those not loved by time. The power-users were born. Unnatural creatures. Your son, the most unnatural of all."
Wilbur stays silent.
"And the cycle is completed. Your son, with his power, creates the Scar, which caused the creation of the power-users."
Gentian puts a finger to his lips as he says, "It's truly a conundrum. Only one with infinite time...like myself, of course...could tackle such a complex problem.
"Can anything be done to stop it?" Wilbur asks. "To stop me."
"Yes." Gentian walks up to Wilbur. "After an eternity of madness, I regained my sanity. Then, contemplating for eons and eons, I think I've found a way to rid the Scar from the sky. I set the plan in motion, you see...the destruction of the Eos, the release of the Golden Emperor, and his death."
Cornelius could only look away from the guilt. He had pulled the trigger through instinct and saw his son crumble into dust.
"All of that of course, to bring both of you here...together. So Wilbur...are you ready? The price is, I would say, unequivocally steep."
"I'll do anything to make it right!"
"Are you certain?"
"Yes!"
"Oh, father." Gentian embraces the boy. "How I hated you for so long."
And another piece of the puzzle clicks in Cornelius' head. "No, Wilbur!"
A pained gasp escapes Wilbur's lips. His eyes open to their fullest. Horror. To Cornelius, time seems to slow down as the boy falls from Gentian's arm and the hidden dagger exits his heart, covered in blood. The red runs down to Gentian's elbow.
"May you always be worthy of praise, Noble One." Cornelius could feel the hate coating each word. He grabs his son and cradles his body in his arms.
"Hold on! Wilbur! Hold on!"
"Dad. I…I can't feel anything."
"Oh God!" He clutches at the wound. The blood keeps flowing through his fingers like a broken dam. So much blood. "Wilbur! Please!"
"Dad…I'm so sorry."
"No! Don't say anything! You're going to make it." But the evidence was too overwhelming.
"Haha." The boy laughed weakly. "You're really bad at lying, you know that?"
"Don't waste your energy." The life was already leaving his eyes. His hands lay limp across his chest.
"This is the price for what I did."
"No. You didn't do anything to deserve this!"
"But I will…and I can't take knowing how many lives I'll destroy."
Cornelius tightens his hold, pressing his son to his chest.
"It feels…so warm…and nice here." Then the boy's body relaxes into lifelessness.
"You!" Cornelius glares at Gentian. "Why?"
Gentian weeps as he looks at the dagger then at the blood.
"Answer me, damn it!"
"I will send you back in time with my remaining power. And you will have to do the same to the Golden Emperor...before he creates the Scar. The two deaths will cauterize the space-time."
"Why does it have to be me? Why can't you go back to kill him?"
"Do you really have to ask that question, Doctor? I think you know why."
"But why did he have to die first?"
Gentian drops the dagger and walks back to the throne. "That was an unavoidable fact. This place, at the end of time, negates Robinson's second law of time travel. Any other way would have been fruitless."
Cornelius picks the dagger off the floor. The blood has not cooled.
"When you are successful, space time will reset…and this whole tragedy will be averted," Gentian continues. "And you will be able to see your son again."
Cornelius can barely contain his anger. It is taking all his resolve not to slice the weapon across the man's throat.
"Do not let your hatred of me cloud your judgment. Only I can send you back to the past."
"It doesn't mean I'll forgive you for what you did today."
Gentian laughs, the tears still on his face. "Your forgiveness is useless. Your son…my father...his death was not what I wanted. What I want is life. Not this ceaseless eternity. Not this ending.""
"Don't talk to me anymore. Let's...let's just get this over with."
Gentian glows silver and gold. "Then, goodbye forever, grandfather."
The warmth of Gentian's power surrounds him.
"Grandfather. Don't be mistaken...I did love him. More than I loved anyone else. Even more than my own life...I loved him."
But Cornelius is hurled back through time before he could respond, with the world around him spinning. His words are lost in the gust of wind.
Cornelius opens his eyes. The colors are gone. What replace them are high arched ceilings. The marble floor beneath him shakes. Explosions can be felt from outside the walls. Through the windows, the starships are attacking.
"Who are you? Identify yourself!" The command came from a soldier in armor. His hand is already covered in his power, ready to fire. "how did you get into the palace?"
"I am here to see the Emperor." His throat clenches and the thought remains. Could he kill his own son?
"Put down your weapon!"
The weight of the dagger, the crusts of blood, the feel of metal in his hand. With these thoughts, he grips it even tighter. He must not lose it. At all costs.
"I said 'Put it down!'"
"General. What is the matter?" A figure appears from the doorway.
Cornelius recognizes the voice and when the face emerges from behind the pillar with an escort of power users, he could not resist comparing the two of them together. Cereus and the Golden Emperor. Where Cereus' was full of sadness, the Emperor's is set in stone. Emotionless.
"Noble One. We have an intruder. Please, for your protection…"
"I don't need your protection." The way he says it, with a final certainty and without arrogance, gives a spine tingling jolt of electricity through Cornelius' body.
Then those golden eyes swerve towards him.
"It's good to see you again, Wilbur." But what Cornelius feels is not joy. He is scared. Was this truly his gentle boy?
"Your majesty? Do you know this man?" This time, it is, as far as Cornelius can remember him, the man named Soren who comes forward. Ready to fight.
"Yes." Those eyes then look down to the dagger. To the blood. "Hello, father."
The courtiers begin murmuring amongst themselves. Like sharks in a frenzy.
"When do you come from?"
"I don't even know... So far into the future that there is nothing left."
"Have you come to set right what was wrong?"
"Yes," says Cornelius. He walks forward with the dagger in hand, shaking uncontrollably. Maybe his son would kill him and all would be lost.
"Soren…let no one interfere," says the Golden Emperor as he walks up to meet him.
Cornelius could not keep the tears from flowing. Wilbur was still shorter than him, and as the man looks up, memories of the little baby in his arms spring to mind. So he embraces the boy, pulling as hard as he could, and knowing the betrayal of it all.
The Golden Emperor is unmoved by the sentiment.
"Do it, father. If you believe that this is right..."
He didn't gasp this time. Cornelius wonders if the boy can even feel pain, but he makes sure to dig in deep. Through the third and fourth rib. Through the aorta and the atria. The body falls as the Golden Emperor's feet buckles from underneath him. Soren screams. The courtiers panic. But, all these noises seem muffled to Cornelius' ears. Even the explosions lose their meaning.
Is this how Gentian felt? He wonders.
"Why did you let me?" Cornelius asks softly.
The Golden Emperor smiles as his eyes close. "When I saw you there, with your face like death, I knew that my end was near. My dearest friend."
And Cornelius' question is answered. Why did it have to be him? "Because only I could get close to you..."
"Your Majesty! Please hold on," Soren screams as he tries to push Cornelius away.
"No Soren. Please. Let me rest. I'm so…so tired. Let me rest. It's been so long..."
Cornelius stands on his feet, placing the Emperor's head on Soren's lap. And as the Golden Emperor exhales for the last time, Cornelius is bathed in light.
"What's happening?" Soren asks.
"This time line is dying and a new one is being born."
The castle blows apart like sand in the wind. There is no more sky. No more sun or moon. Their bodies begins to disintegrate. The world is truly ending.
And the very last piece of the puzzle sets.
"Goodbye forever, grandfather. Goodbye…forever." Gentian's words echo. The pain and fear in those words. And acceptance that his existence would never be.
"May you always be worthy of praise, Noble One," Cornelius whispers for the last time.
The sound of metal cranking. A twist of a bolt here. A wire needing stripping there. From below the gray contraption, only a spike of golden hair can be seen. It weaves left. Weaves right. Then, a hand shoots up and grabs the cup of yogurt left standing on top of this new machine.
"I think that's it. Hopefully this'll be the last time." The thirteen year old boy stands up and closes the hatch, being careful to push all the wires back in. He wipes the sweat of his forehead, only to smear oil across his face.
"Here goes nothing." He crosses his fingers and pushes the bright red button.
It begins to shake, make a high-pitched sound, then stop. A latch opens and the boy smiles.
"Yes! I've done it. The world's most perfect cup of yogurt." He grabs a spoon and digs in. A smile spreads across his face. "Hmm, delicious."
"Now that's a weird reason to invent something, Lewis."
"Well, you can never really appreciate yogurt unless it's made just right. The correct proportions of dairy, fermentation time, and even fruit acidity. I mean, if you're going to eat something, might as well…" He stops. Realization seeps slowly into his face. He slowly turns around to see the familiar boy with black hair curled like a swirly in the front. With that same familiar lightning bolt shirt.
"Might as well what, Lewis?" The all too familiar smirk that exudes youthful confidence. The boy leans against the door with his arms across his chest.
"Wilbur!" He runs and embraces the taller boy. "What are you doing here? I thought we agreed that you shouldn't come back."
"Rules! Shmules! I missed you buddy!" And Wilbur smiles from ear to ear. "Hopefully, it was the same for you."
"Not really. Ow!" Lewis exclaims as Wilbur punches him squarely in the arm. "So how's the family?"
"Same old same old. They're getting on my nerves about this girl-"
"Wait, what? A girl? Aren't you too young to be dating? Did I give you the speech yet? Did I teach you how to put a tie on 'cause you know...that's useful for those fancy dinners."
"Chill out Lewis! Yes, you did. Truthfully, it was the most awkward conversation we've ever had. And you will have to look forward to that someday. Now! Let's me and you just go outside and leave these contraptions behind. How long have you been in here for anyway?"
"Maybe…two or three days." Lewis smiles with that same guilty expression.
"Come on, then. There's a beautiful world out there." Wilbur opens the door and ushers Lewis through it. "And it feels like things are just waiting to happen."
Author's Note: The F****** end!
Thank you for reading the entire story. I know it took a long time. I hoped you enjoyed it, even if for only a little while. I know it started getting crazy confusing at the end. So just tell me what you liked about it, what you didn't like. Maybe yell at me for using comma splices. But again Thank you. Thank you so much for giving this fanfic a chance. And now, to move on to actually publishing a novel.
