Chapter 99
Echoes of Eternity
"Again." Shadow lurched to his feet and staggered to the crest of the hill. A long grassy plain stretched out before him, winding steadily downward towards a forest of palm trees. Between Shadow and the treeline, just barely visible in the harsh sunlight, awaited the sign post. Shadow focused on it, pushing everything else around him to the periphery. The sunlight dimmed, the vibrant colors of Little Planet's surface drew back. Shadow slowed his breathing. The air around him seemed to stop. For half a heartbeat, Shadow stood sentinel atop the hill, as still as a statue…and then…Boom!
Wind and air snapped backward from the force of Shadow's shockwaves. He tore down the hill, gaining speed with the slope and carrying it into the flat. Shadow's speed was so great, he did not even feel the wind rushing against his face. Pop! Pop! The sound barrier exploded causing grass and dirt to fling up into the air. Scorch marks burned into the ground from the heat generated by his speed.
Not enough. Not enough. Shadow delved into his reserves, drawing out every ounce of reserve power he had in his body. Do it! Do it! The sign post was near. More. More. Shadow closed his eyes and pushed with all he had. For a split moment, he accelerated, but he could not carry the speed. Shadow blitzed by the sign post and saw it flip. He felt the strange weightless sensation in his stomach and he tried to carry it forward. It was no use, Shadow could already feel himself slowing down.
Moments later, the sensation passed. Shadow came to a slow stop just before the edge of the trees. He collapsed to his knees, breathing hard. The burning in his lungs was a fitting punishment for Shadow's stubbornness. Elder Yorven had told him to give it up for the day, three tries ago. It's no use. I was even slower this time. Shadow rose gently to his feet and swayed. Exhaustion swept over him and nearly brought him to the ground. He drifted over to one of the palm trees and held onto the trunk for support. His legs wobbled beneath him, raging at him for the abuse he had put them through that day.
For several minutes, Shadow waited for his body to recover. In the meantime, Elder Yorven finally reached him. "Have you finally had enough?"
Shadow nodded. "I'll try again."
"It is not a matter of trying, Shadow the Hedgehog." Yorven smiled and his tone was friendly, but at the moment, Shadow found the aged fox extremely annoying.
"I have to run faster," Shadow said gruffly.
"You have to be faster," Yorven corrected. He reached into his robe and drew out a small circular fruit and handed it to Shadow. "You will not reach Sonic's speed simply by running."
Shadow resisted the temptation to throw the fruit in Yorven's face, electing instead to take a huge bite. The juice was sweet and with just one bite, he felt warmth return to his legs. "So what are you suggesting? I slide down the hill?"
Yorven chuckled. "Not at all. You must use your own abilities, those that separate you from Sonic. The abilities you showcased in your adventure into the past."
Shadow grimaced. "I can't do that on command." He closed his fist intently. It had actually been Shadow's first instinct to try and replicate the power he had used against his doppelganger in Elysium. However, without the drama of the moment, the power seemed to remain dormant. Even with the purple Chaos Emerald that Shadow had brought with him to Little Planet, he had been unable to do anything outside of his usual abilities.
Yorven put a reassuring hand on Shadow's shoulder. "You will find a way. I have no doubt about that. For now, however, you must allow your body to rest."
Shadow pushed Yorven away. "We don't have time for that! What happens when the Realm Lord enters my world?"
"You cannot stop him by breaking yourself. However, that does not mean we cannot use our time wisely. Come, allow me to teach you what I know of the Lore Masters, so that you are better prepared."
Shadow hesitated. He glanced back towards the signpost, and for a moment, he imagined a mirage of Sonic standing beside it, mocking Shadow and beckoning him forward. How had Sonic used the sign posts so easily? Was he truly so much faster than Shadow. And I was created to destroy him. The Realm Lord's revelation cut at Shadow's heart. He was but a copy, a shadow of the true light, and to make matters worse, he was weaker.
"What is troubling you?" Yorven ventured.
"What if I cannot escape him?" Shadow said faintly. "What if he is inevitable, and I am fated to serve him?"
"If I could answer that, what difference would it make? Were I to tell you that your struggle is pointless, would that stop you?" Yorven's eyes shone with a spark of light. "Would you stop fighting just because you knew that you would lose?"
Shadow considered this for a moment, but the answer had already come to him, in fact he had known the answer since his first encounter with the Realm Lord. It did not make a difference. "I would fight." Saying the words served as fuel to Shadow's resolve. Despair and doubt would only weigh him down. He had chosen to fight, and he would take that course to the end, regardless of the outcome.
Resigned to rest before his next attempt, Shadow followed Yorven into the deep depths of Little Planet. The two of them walked down the circular ramp which spiraled down into the heart of the planet. Shadow observed the statues and other carved images that depicted figures from Little Planet's ancient past. He wondered if these kingly figures were the Lore Masters, but Yorven did not stop to talk about them. Soon the carvings transitioned to grand scale events in the history of the universe, from the collapsing of the first sun, the spark of intelligent life, its destruction and rebirth.
Shadow slowed down. They were reaching the point he remembered from his last visit here. This carving was almost blank, depicting only a dead planet encased by mist within an empty universe. Beneath the planet was a symbol that appeared to show a triangle enveloped by a circle and crossed by twin diamonds. However, the closer Shadow looked, the more the symbol appeared to change into a confused mass of shapes.
Yorven stopped and came back over to Shadow. "What is this?" Shadow asked him.
"The point of reification." Yorven answered solemnly.
"Reification?"
"It is the moment when the abstract becomes real, when the world of ideals becomes corporeal. There are many theories as to the nature of the universe, the purpose of this display of murals is to demonstrate a few of them. There was once a cult who lived on Little Planet that believed that the physical universe was a reification of abstract ideals. The ideas of physicality, of mortality, and of limitation reached a point of singularity, a breakthrough in which the ideal became real." Yorven shuffled forward and pointed to the shape that vaguely resembled a triangle. "Mortality." He then pointed to the first diamond. "Limitation." Then the next diamond. "Physicality."
"When these three concepts crossed the chasm between ideal and true, they became the structure of the universe. It is a harrowing philosophy, and one that never became very popular here. It sees the world, and life itself as a cage, a separation from a former time of bliss and perpetual ideal. This mural represents the fate of a universe whose very birth brought about the stage for death."
Shadow looked closer, but the symbol defied his mind's ability to classify it. "This shape…it looks like the symbol the Realm Lord uses."
Yorven raised an eyebrow. "What do you see?"
"I…I think I see a triangle, and two diamonds encompassed by a circle…is…is that wrong?"
"It might be, if there were a true answer. I see three squares held together by a single line."
Shadow folded his arms, uncertain if Yorven was pulling his leg. "How is that possible?"
"Reification." Yorven pointed at the symbol. "Mystery itself made solid, or perhaps doubt, or perhaps insanity. I cannot say. Now come, this is not what I brought you down here to see."
They continued down the ramp until they approached the entrance of the gilded temple, the storehouse of the Time Stones. However, Yorven turned aside and led Shadow towards a small, nearly invisible continuation of the ramp. It seemed to pass straight through the solid floor. Shadow felt his stomach rise inside him as he walked. There was a great lurching sensation and the blood rushed up inside his head. Shadow felt the ground beneath him fall away, and for a moment, he started to fall, but by the next he was walking upright.
In an instant, the ground had reversed, and he and Yorven were now walking up a ramp instead of down. The gilded temple was now beneath them again, and the base of the Celestial Spyre, delved down back towards the surface of the planet. "It does take some getting used to," Elder Yorven said with a laugh. "Come Shadow the Hedgehog, you will see stranger sights than this."
It did not take long for Elder Yorven to prove himself right. Once Shadow adjusted to a sudden switch from floor to ceiling, he was assaulted by another round of shock to his senses. The underground caverns of Little Planet gave way to a vast black expanse as empty and dark as the far reaches of space. Huge luminous orbs floated over the darkness like planets, and in the great distance, Shadow could see the glint of yellow light of a far burning sun. The stairs they were walking down were no longer made of stone, but appeared to be formed of white light.
It was as if Shadow were walking down a bridge of light through a shrunken down model of the universe. Up ahead, Shadow saw the outline of a semi transparent temple. Its walls were made of a mixture of different lights appearing as though the architects had roped down a rainbow and fashioned it into building material.
The stairs leveled off and Yorven led Shadow to the mouth of the temple. Its doors were made of a shifting golden light and flung backward at their approach. To Shadow's surprise, the doorway did not lead deeper into the dark cosmic, but instead, to a sunlit plain. Certain that he would not be prepared for what came next, Shadow followed Yorven through the doorway.
They strode out onto a grassy sward beneath a brilliant sun. Whether or not it was the same sun that had shone down on them earlier that evening, Shadow couldn't say. Across a short field of grass, Shadow could see a cliffside where a great sea rushed against its lower reaches. Atop the cliff, rose a series of great stone towers. After taking a few steps forward, Shadow heard a loud lurching sound. He turned to watch the doors close and vanish without a trace. "Don't worry, they will open again when we return."
Shadow and Yorven hiked across the field. A large chasm separated the field from the cliffs, forcing them to take a single forlorn bridge across the gap. It was then that Shadow noticed how quiet the place was. He paused halfway down the bridge and closed his eyes. He could feel the wind pushing through his fur, but it made no sound. Shadow exhaled and his breathing seemed to echo. He opened his eyes and gazed down at the sea. The churning waves below were completely silent.
"Come, we are almost there." Yorven ushered Shadow forward and the two of them crossed the bridge. They walked along the cliffs until they reached a set of enormous steps that led up into a bowl set within the cliffs. Here, Shadow could finally see the great stone structure in its entirety. Dozens of towers encircled the main courtyard, each one nearly a hundred feet tall. The courtyard itself was of such immense scale, it gave off the impression it had been made by giants.
Weeds and tufts of grass stuck out from between the cracks of the stone tiles, this coupled with the general erosion of the stone, gave the place a timeless quality that pressed on Shadow's heart. He felt as if he was entering a place that had not been disturbed in millenia. A faint trickling sound prompted him to look down. Several dozen minute streams of water were rushing down the courtyard towards the center. There, the stone gave way into a deep pool filled with crystal clear water. Erupting out of the current was a great crystal wheel with twelve digits.
The water that filled the pool would push one of the digits, causing the wheel to spin. The play of water and the light above created a hue of vibrant colors, causing each digit of the wheel to light up a different color. Though the wheel appeared to spin in one continuous direction, the more Shadow looked, the more he realized it was moving both backwards and forwards. He rubbed his eyes and checked again. This time he noticed that the water itself was flowing both backwards and forwards, falling down the pool, and rushing up it again.
"What is this place?"
"Tempus Vanitas, the monument to the Lore Masters." Elder Yorven took a seat on a carved bench in front of the pool. "Before we go inside, I must tell you about the Doom of the Lore Masters, and how this place came to be frozen in time."
Shadow sat down and folded his arms.
"We know very little about them all things considered. What we know of the Lore Masters comes from those that were the successors to their civilization. It was they that discovered the Tempus Vanitas, and most importantly, the great achievement of the Lore Masters, the Time Stones. This was ancient history now, but even to the ancients the Lore Masters represented the youth of the universe. Upon discovering the Lore Masters, the ancients greatly desired to learn what had become of them. Yet there is not a shred of evidence as to what happened to them, or that their civilization had ever existed."
"What does that mean? Wasn't this place built by them?"
"It was. But this place does not exist, not really. You can tell that yourself, if you think clearly. Consider this wheel. Time does not move forward and backward, but only ever forward. Yet here, time itself is frozen. So, yes, the Lore Masters did construct this place, but when? Not in the past, nor in the future."
Shadow frowned. "I don't understand."
"When we say that something exists, it is often difficult to use existence itself as an attribute. However, we can generally agree that if something occupies a space and a time, then it exists. Clearly, the Tempus Vanitas is space, but it is without time. The sun shines at the same height here, the water does not move, there is the appearance of reality, but it is all stasis."
"What about the Time Stones?"
Yorven smiled. "Yes, they are the definitive proof that the Lore Masters were real, but they are an even greater mystery. Fortunately, this was the study and labor of the ancients. For countless generations those that lived on Little Planet made it their business to understand and document the history of the Lore Masters. How could one resolve the apparent paradox of their existence?"
"Limbo," Shadow answered, almost without thinking.
"Indeed. A contradiction so forceful, that it ripped the Lore Masters out of the stream of time. That is the legend that was created. The Lore Masters were the first civilization to discover Little Planet. They discovered the strange temporal energies that run throughout it, and began to study it. At some point, the greatest of their number, the Time Lord Gothro poured all of his knowledge and lore into a great undertaking, the forging of the Time Stones. Since they were made from the heart of the planet, the Time Stones synced with the bones of Little Planet and gave the planet itself the ability to shift through time."
"Drifting through the ages, the Lore Masters used this ability to become supremely wise. They advanced in all areas of knowledge, using the freedom of eternity to become invested in all kinds of learning. Eventually, a few among their ranks rose to prominence. The great four. Gorthro, the Twins, and the missing god." Yorven rose and motioned for Shadow to follow him.
They walked past the pool and towards the grand entrance into the monument. Doors as tall as buildings led them into a central chamber. Within, they found a great pedestal, upon which were erected three large statues. The first was a hedgehog with closed eyes. He wore a robe and held out a carving of a Time Stone. Two were set behind him and in close proximity. They were echidna's, equal in appearance. Their eyes were open and flames burned inside them. Behind the twins was an empty space, perfect for another statue, except the space was empty.
"Gothro," Yorven pointed at the hedgehog. "The Twins," He motioned to the two echidnas. "And the missing god," He indicated the empty space. "These were the great four, those who became the leaders of the Lore Masters. In the legends, the twins desired to use their great knowledge to become the custodians of the universe, to rule over it, and to ensure its peace and development. Against Gothro's wishes, the twins used the Time Stones to create an empire that stretched across the cosmos. Set apart from the time of mortals and possessed by knowledge, the Twins became tyrants."
"The more power they had, the more they desired, the more they controlled the more they hated anything that was free. Dominion became a curse, and their former lives of knowledge and peace, became desperate struggles and fights for power. Eventually, the Twins became aware that something was frustrating their control over the timeline. They discovered that Gothro was using the Time Stones against them, liberating where they were attempting to conquer. The Twins desired to kill their former friend, but as the maker of the stones, Gothro was tethered to them, and the Twins owed all their power to the stones. In seeming solution to this problem, the Twins elected to go back, to use the Stones to go back in time to before Gothro created them, and kill him then."
Yorven sighed. "In an instant, the Twins, and everything they and Gothro had built with the Time Stones were torn out of history. The Doom of the Lore Masters was such that they never existed. This place, it is a kind of echo, a scar within the planet."
"What about the missing god?"
"I cannot say. Whoever he or she was, they were so utterly removed from history that nothing remains. Perhaps, whoever it was owed their very existence to the Time Stones, so when Gothro was killed before he could make them, they vanished completely."
Shadow frowned. "If what you say is true…then how will going back help me?"
Yorven shrugged. "I cannot say. No one has ever tried. It is my belief that even if the Time Stones were untainted, that if you returned to the past you would not find the Lore Masters. Or at least, whoever you found, would not be the Lore Masters yet, and they would never become them."
"Then why bother?"
"Because you go to the past with the sign posts, not the time stones."
"What's the difference?"
"The sign posts were created by the ancients, not the Lore Masters. They are connected to time through different means, and separated from the Doom. When one uses the sign posts, they are not brought to whatever time they choose, but are instead, brought to where they need to be. Furthermore, and perhaps this is just an old masters delusion…but I believe that you were meant to go back there." Yorven paused. "I once believed that Sonic was the destined hero of this planet, it was as if the sign posts were constructed specifically for him. Now I wonder if they are not meant for you instead."
Shadow scoffed. "I'm sick of destiny."
"But as I keep telling you, freedom is not always the removal of fate, but the ability to accept it."
"What am I accepting?" Shadow challenged. "How can I move forward when I don't know who or what is pulling the strings?"
"We cannot always live our lives on surety. There comes a point when we must take the plunge, to have faith. I do not believe that the Realm Lord holds all of our fates in his hands. Evil does not have that kind power. No matter what he may boast of, it is important to remember that evil is only a privation of the good. Whatever the Realm Lord is, he must always be less than."
"Less than what?"
Yorven shook his head. "I cannot answer that. Perhaps that is the truth that you must discover."
Shadow and Yorven returned to Little Planet's surface, and by then darkness had fallen. Alone in his room, Shadow laid on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He felt drained and exhausted by the day's twin assaults on his body and mind. The trial of the sign post still lay before him, but somehow, Shadow felt confident that this time, he would be able to conquer it. Doubt and confusion were the final barriers, and both of them had finally been crushed. For better or worse, Shadow would have to confront his fate.
To his shame, Shadow found himself wishing he had someone to confide in, someone he could share his concerns and fears with. Maria was gone, Rouge and the others had their own problems back on earth and Sonic…Shadow wondered where Sonic fit into the puzzle. Why had the Realm Lord created Shadow specifically to kill Sonic? Was the blue hedgehog really so powerful that even a deity of time feared him?
Shadow reached out under his bed and withdrew the purple Chaos Emerald. It had brought him to Little Planet, but Shadow knew that the gem could not join him in his adventure to the past. For a split second, Shadow considered warping back to earth, to putting this all behind him. Rouge had asked for Shadow's help, and he had promised to return. He did not even know how long ago that was now. Had Rouge and her team managed to keep up the fight against GUN? Shadow yearned for the simplicity of such a conflict. It suited him far more than this clandestine mystery.
In the end, Shadow resisted the temptation and went to sleep. That night he dreamt of a mundane day back at the Space Colony Ark. Maria had caught a cold, so the two of them spent the day playing board games. It was a simple memory, but it felt oddly disjointed, as if it were the memory of someone else. The memory faded and Shadow found himself within a deep valley. He was encircled by an endless hoard of Shadow clones. Lighting flashed overhead, illuminating the scores of black and red fur. Shadow tried to escape, but the throng of bodies made it impossible to move. Up above, a figure eclipsed the top of the canyon. All the Shadows heralded it as their captain. The Realm Lord raises his scepter high into the sky. Shadow's voice joined the chorus of a thousand throats as they let out a roar.