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Remember what I said about safe distances when realities shattered around you? Well, it’s worse when your reality shatters before you’ve had time to properly piece it back together.
Zander flew to his feet, then immediately tripped over them, landing back on the couch, clutching his heart. His gaze didn’t leave Sidera for a second. She placed the tray on the table, handing Nimien a teacup with a demure. “Here you are, Dad. See how much more presentable you are when you’re wearing clothes?”
“Do you know how many civilizations debase themselves with clothing?” Nimien took a slurpy sip of his tea. “No, thank you. I’ve spent most of my life in confinement. I won’t let clothes trap me as well, oh no.”
Zander’s heart pounded so hard it made the entire couch shake. I reached for his hand, giving it a squeeze, but the touch sent him flying upwards again. I dropped my hands back in my lap, clutching them together, my knuckles going white. Breathe, Sally, breathe.
“What’s gotten into him?” asked Nimien, putting down the now-empty teacup. His gelatinous blob squelched.
“Fatherhood,” muttered Blayde.
“This would win awards in the daytime television circuit.” James slunk into her armchair. “Sorry. Humor is how I deal with awkward situations.”
I said nothing. I pulled my feet up to my chest, then remembered it was impolite to put one’s feet on a host’s clean couch and dropped them to the floor again.
Zander gritted his teeth. No, I don’t think they were gritted; he just couldn’t remember how to get his jaw to work. “You’re not my daughter. You’re his.”
“Sidera!” Nimien gasped. “What have I told you about lying?”
Sidera blinked a few times, folding her hands behind her back. “That it’s absolutely terrible and never to do it under any circumstances except if it’s the end of the universe?”
“And is it the end of the universe?”
“Might as well be,” she replied. “How else was I meant to make them trust me and bring them here?”
“You could have just asked!” Zander clutched the couch, sending tremors from his hands through the cushion. “We’ve been looking for this place for days. We would have come with you.”
“Would you have?” She cocked an eyebrow high. “If you knew who my father was? I’ve heard stories all my life about your shit. I’m not sorry for the subterfuge. It was the only way.”
“You’ve heard stories, huh?” said Blayde. “Did you hear about what your father did to us? To Sally?”
Zander squeezed my hand. Oh—I was the one shaking. I had been so focused on what he should be feeling that I didn’t notice what I actually was. And that was complete and abject terror.
Nimien.
We were in his house, mortal, and at his mercy.
The walls seemed closer than they’d been when we sat down. Everything screamed at me to get up, to go, to run. Was the window a proper escape route? I clung to Zander, my anchor in the storm. No, I would not let this man, this ancient Nimien, trap us once again. Every clue leading right here, to this place, just like how he had set everything in my life in motion once before. Even Sidera. I couldn’t believe I’d wasted heartbreak on her.
“That is ancient history,” said Nimien, waving us down. “Quite literally. Thousands upon thousands of years ago. Will you have some tea?”
Yeah, none of us were touching that. I glanced away from the window and caught Blayde’s gaze, her face as white as the walls. She shook her head, slowly—don’t.
“What do you want with us, Nimien?” I asked. “Why trick us into coming here? What do you need us for this time?”
“Trick you?” His brows furrowed. “I had no idea you were coming. I would have put a roast on otherwise.”
“So, the Dread isn’t a trick of yours to get us here?” asked Zander. I would have, but my mouth had dried shut. “The temple? Sidera?”
Nimien lifted an eyebrow. “You’re trying to solve the Dread too?”
Blayde turned to Zander and me. “Maybe he’s senile?”
“The mind isn’t gone yet, my dear,” said Nimien. His dropped his eyebrow, fingers pressed against each other. “I’ve let myself age, but I’m still smarter than all of you combined. And still, I can’t resolve the problem of the Dread. It’s been slowly building for years, and time has almost run out. Until what? I don’t know. I’m hoping you can tell me.”
My stomach took another Olympic-style plunge, this time all the way through my gut and down through the floor.
We’d come all this way.
Followed every clue.
We’d found the Eternal, the man who made the weapon Miro was defending.
And he didn’t know what to do?
Lies.
“We’re literally here for you to tell us.” My hands shook in my lap, my world going hot, hot, hot. It took every ounce of strength I had to keep myself rooted in this couch, to keep myself from doing something I knew I would regret. “Every clue led us right to you.”
“We were hoping to find one of us.” Blayde sagged into her chair. “Someone with answers about our past. As well as the Dread.”
“Just little old me. Sorry to burst your bubble.” Nimien waved his hand in the air in a sign that meant absolutely nothing. I gritted my teeth, grinding them down until I could taste enamel.
“Well then,” said Blayde, standing. “We won’t impose on your hospitality a second longer. Shall we?”
I stood, too, knees shaking, clinging to Zander as he clung to me.
“Oh!” said James, clapping with pride. “I get it! You’re the guy that kidnapped Zander and Blayde, aren’t you? The creep who wanted Sally for himself and wrinkled the timeline to get her. I thought you were dead!”
“Death is a social construct,” Nimien sighed. “They were trespassing. And besides, they had recently left me for dead. I was young, hotheaded. I was bound to be a little peeved about that. But I’m over that now. A few hundred thousand years are enough to give anyone a sense of perspective. And you are?”
“James Felling. Earth,” she replied.
“Ah, the new mortal sidekick.” Nimien gave her a curt nod, and James recoiled, eyes wide. “Nice to meet you. Anyway, as I said, I’ve gained some perspective since then.”
“I highly doubt that,” said Blayde.
“Oh please.” Nimien rolled his eyes. “I’ve been alone for far too long. It’s made me seriously re-think how I’ve treated you in the past. This may be late, but I’m sorry. Sorry for everything. Sorry for creating a library of all knowledge that’s only design was to trap and punish you. I see now that was a little... over the top. I’m glad you’re here. It’s hard to reach out and make apologies when you’re in an infinity prison. And I’m sorry for the accidental flashing. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a reason to put on pants in the morning.”
“I usually have to scream for hours to get him to cover up,” said Sidera, taking a sip of her tea.
Nimien furrowed his brow. “Haven’t I been punished enough?”
“Who punished you?” Zander asked, slowly sitting back on the couch. I wanted to drag him to the door, but I was still trembling too much for anything. “How did you get here, Nimien?”
“After you blew me up,” he said, “I woke up here, chained to a tree. Tale as old as time. Literally.”
“And the labyrinth?” Blayde joined us on the couch as James reached for the tea tray and helped herself to a biscuit. “You built it to pass the time?”
“Some local god gave the natives some plans and a cement mixer,” said Nimien. “Then the place gained sentience, which might have been the intention. The rest is history.”
“But... why?” Blayde leaned forward. “What’s the point?”
“Who knows?” Nimien shrugged. “The labyrinth continues to grow, constantly providing me with everything I need—except for an exit. It grows and shapes itself to keep me trapped. I age in here, slowly but surely, I age. I have managed to reach the antechambers before, but as soon as I step inside, I revert to my former self. No, at this point, all I want is an exit. A true one.”
“And by exit you mean—”
“A calm and peaceful death,” he said, smiling coyly. “After all these millennia, it’s all I truly want. An end to this labyrinth of suffering.”
Silence. I’m sure everyone’s heads were buzzing just like mine. Buzzing with thoughts of ancient spite building traps around the man who had tried to use time to trap me, a punishment fit for an immortal. Buzzing with thoughts of a way out of immortality, sitting in one place for far too long. The one thing we had an abundance of combined with what we lacked.
Time. And patience.
“Don’t pity me,” said Nimien. “I deserve this. Maybe even more. And while I wish I knew who had passed judgement on me, I accept it. I’ve found peace, joy. My daughter brings me word of the outside world. And books! More books than I could possibly read, even in my condition.”
“How do you get in here?” Zander turned to Sidera now. Looking at her for the first time since she’d shown her true self. “If your father can’t get out...”
“I’m not my father,” she said. “As long as I don’t try to jump right into the house, the labyrinth doesn’t pay attention to me. I jump to an atrium and walk right in.”
“And the traps aren’t a problem?”
“Please,” she purred. “I grew up inside this labyrinth. Those traps? Literally children’s games. I can cross them in my sleep.”
Zander nodded. “And Desmond—”
“Is my brother.”
“How—”
“Let us start at the beginning,” said Nimien, “After I found myself in an ever-expanding maze—alone. I was hopelessly bored. So, I built a house. That took me a while, but it did pass the time. Then I went through a wanderlust phase: built a van, drove it around. Then I got into molecular gastronomy and—no, none of that matters. I exhausted every hobby in the universe. I thought I would just wither away from boredom until I heard a sound I never expected to ever hear again.”
“Which was?” asked Zander.
“Someone knocking on my door.” Nimien smiled. “Two men, scratched up, confused. They were part of a research expedition, men with free minds who had seen too much and had never known peace. So of course, bored as I was, I asked them if they wanted an impartial opinion, and they accepted. But when I solved their problems, they came at me with more. At least it gave me something to do. When their rulers got pissed, I just played the immortal card and they backed off. Soon, they turned my help into a contest.
“First, they came every year, with the promise that I could make wishes come true. But they were still too easy. Too dull. To pass the time, I created a virtual, programmable world that I could hook up to my brain and vacation in. Which was when my first impossible request came: a man wanted to be immortal. That was something I simply could not give—not to just anyone, at least. So I offered him my simulator, in which time was relative and could be stretched to an eternity. He agreed, so long as I wiped the memory of the decision from his head. More immersive that way, you know?
“He was not the only one seeking immortality or even a different life. One by one they came, and I offered them my simulator and let them live their wildest dreams. And each time I rebuilt a new simulator from scratch, used it until the next one came and asked for the life he had always wanted, which I gave to them easily.
“But then people came less regularly—until they stopped coming at all. No one ever did warn me when someone was meant to show up, and I never cared because who wants to wait around for someone who only cares about mooching some stuff off of you? Terrible conversation. Until one day a young couple showed up on my doorstep, having won that year’s race, ready for their wish. The man was dying of an inoperable disease, came wanting immortality for him and his wife. I offered them the simulator, telling them the price they would have to pay for it. The woman was not willing to live a lie and advised him to ask for something else. But he didn’t give a shit and made me hook him up alone.
“That was how I met Alaysia.” Nimien paused. Sidera rubbed his back soothingly. “She had no one waiting for her outside. So, I offered her a place in my home. She was a welcome face in my home, a kind smile where before there was none. I began work again on a new simulator for myself, but soon I found myself enjoying her company more than my mini vacations. Evening strolls and long conversations became my day-to-day routine. After so long, I had finally found my true soul mate. I never finished that last simulator.
“Alaysia and I got married—as officially as one could be married within the confines of this maze—and for years we lived happily together. We raised two beautiful children. Twins! Desmond and Sidera, whom you’ve met.” He reached for his daughter’s hand and she took it, squeezing it adoringly. “And I grew up. I understood what I had done to you, that my hate was festering, and I processed it.” Nimien took a deep breath, staring down at the floor.
“But Mom refused immortality. She wanted to know what came after.” Sidera let go of his hand in order to rub his back again. “After her death, Desmond really took it hard. He blamed Father for not forcing immortality on her, believed it should have been a family decision. So... he ran away, losing the coordinates of the labyrinth. Now he sees the power he’s left behind, and he’s trying to come back.”
No one said anything. Sidera got up, brushed her hands down her pants, and strode out of the room, leaving us in silence. James frowned, turning to Nimien, leaning forward.
“So, none of this has anything to do with the Dread?” she asked. “We found the temple. Your weapon. We know you know how to stop this thing.”
“Stop...the Dread?” Nimien’s brows soared high. “That temple isn’t a weapon. It’s a bunker. In case we don’t solve this problem, at least some people, good people, will be there to populate the next universe.”
Not a weapon? But Miro said... My hands clutched the couch cushion so tightly the fabric started to tear. Another one of Nimien’s lies.
“The next... What the frash are you going on about?” asked Blayde.
Nimien sighed again. “The temple guy...” He snapped his fingers, squinting, searching. “Miro! That’s the name. They won during the early years of the race, all four cheerful bodies of them. Sweet little weirdo. They had creepy gates-into-the-future eyes. I think they had some kind of acid trip that left them temporally out of sync, but all they could see there was fear and an anxiety that rotted men’s souls. So they asked me to stop it from happening. The kid was a mess, and I had to do something. I gave them labyrinth tech. Found them a proper bubble universe—yeah, my own library technology is what’s keeping me trapped here, laugh all you’d like—gave them cryogenic chambers and the lot. You can ride out anything in a bunker like that. Little did I know that tech would be like candy to you two.”
Zander and Blayde traded glances.
“What do you mean?’ asked Zander.
“You just can’t stop finding it,” said Nimien. His lips curled at the edges, oh-so slightly smiling. It made me shudder, driving me impossibly deeper into the couch. “A few years later, you showed up at my doorstep, just having won the race. But this was a past you, a you from before you met me. So, I pretended not to know you, which was a difficult thing to do, let me tell you. The two of you were... toxic. A lot of threats were exchanged that day.”
“How come we don’t remember this?” Blayde snapped. “I would know if I’ve done the labyrinth before.”
“Oh, so your memory’s infallible now?” chided Nimien. “Past you had found the desert planet, solved the temple, but you had no reason to come and see me. Why would you? It was too early in your own timeline for it to make sense to you. Nothing of the story would in any way compel you to visit. But then something happened to you. I’m not sure exactly what, but you wanted the memories wiped. That was your wish: wipe your memories. Both of yours, so that you could have a fresh start.”
Gobsmacked. Smacked by Gob. Speechless barely began to cover it. How could one respond to that? To the knowledge that the truth was so close, yet so far away? That they had been led here like children taunted with candy?
“End of the world margaritas?” asked Sidera, trotting back into the room with a tray of cocktails brandished high.
“So,” Blayde said quietly, “you took our memories away?”
“More times than you can count.” Nimien nodded. “And always at your own request. I understand, it’s a little too much to process at once.” He held out his hands. “But hey, if you want proof I’m trustworthy, search your memories—oh, that’s right, you made me take them out of your minds a few thousand years ago.”
“So, give them back,” Blayde ordered.
“Look, I know we got off to a rough start,” said Sidera, handing James a drink. She took it, without dropping her eyes from Nimien or picking her jaw off the floor. “But I’m trying to make it up to you.”
“I can’t drink this,” said James. “Your brother just drugged me with space energy drinks. Ergo...”
“Mortal safe,” she said. “I checked. As I said, I’m trying to make it up to you, not give you an emotional hangover.”
“Darling, dearest,” said Nimien. “I just told them about the memory wipes.”
“Oh, right.” She put down her tray. “I probably should have brought more of these then.”
“You knew,” said Zander, glaring at her. “You knew I was missing huge chunks of my memory, and you used that to lie to me? To lead me here?”
“I had to do something.” Sidera brushed her long hair over her shoulder nonchalantly. “Father was getting nowhere with his research into the Dread. I figured getting you all here would implode a binary system with a single hydrogen atom, so to speak.”
Blayde frowned. “Those two stars being—”
“Oh, you take your memories back and save the world,” she replied. “And I don’t get an anxiety attack every time I go out for groceries.”
I bit my lip, felt the cut of my teeth on the skin, the pain a slight distraction from the panic welling up inside me. The still-trembling Zander at my side. Blayde on my other, shaking with eager anticipation.
There, right before me, the man who would have locked me away for all eternity. The man who had twisted time itself to lay me at his feet was asking me for help.
It may have been a thousand, tens of thousands, a million, or billion years for him since our fight in the library, but for me it was only a month ago. I still saw myself squeezing the light from his eyes when I went to sleep at night.
And here he was. Frail. Helpless. Asking us for help. Not asking for forgiveness, knowing he deserves none.
“I’ll meet you downstairs,” he said, struggling to stand. Sidera helped him up, avoiding eye contact with any of us. “You are free to visit the house. I have nothing to hide from you. Take your time. It’s only the end of the universe at stake.”
He marched out of the room, Sidera by his side. I had sunk so deep into the couch that I couldn’t pull myself out anymore. My head was reeling so hard it could catch a fish.
“I know she’s a lying ass and all,” said James, taking a long sip of her drink, “but she makes a mean cocktail. I’ll give her that.”
