Rules

This was not a friendly place.

Tàvàs had become quite adept at divining the nature of things as soon as he blinked back into reality.

Some places were friendly, they had bright, light, air that freely gifted life and stars that winked down promising innumerable delights. 

Others were grim, wretched places. The air, even when whipped by the wind, was stagnant, stale, and resentful of the life it was forced to give. The stars were cruel baleful orbs whose glare beat mercilessly upon the worlds in their care and whose malice could be felt even half a galaxy away. This was one of those.

He hated these kinds of places. He was amazed that it had...

A sharp pain erupted between his shoulder blades. He smiled, even as his nose broke against the unforgiving ground. The electrical radiance spreading along his nerves as he fell into unconsciousness was the familiar second step of dancing into realities like this.

_______________

"Is he..."

"It."

"Is it alive?"

"Yes."

"But why isn't it..."

"It's awake." The voice was hard, flat, devoid of inflection or intonation. Its only texture was a thick, dripping, practiced, contempt.

"Ach... I was going to groan to give you a chance to begin monologuing but your assistant showed a disturbing level of concern for my wellbeing." Tàvàs chuckled "I assume you're going to punish him properly later?" The question twinkling in Tàvàs's eyes went ignored by the grim face across from him.

"Subject bears a passing resemblance to Gene Line 63F, Quality C. Nominally an accepted Xeno Lifeform but you..." The grim one finally brought up the lighting in the room, revealing elaborate panoply: chains intertwined with scraps of a cloth upon which lines of text had been scrawled in immaculate penmanship, atop heavy, richly embroidered robes, completed with a mace and a gun both etched with even more alien text.

"Oh fuck me..." Tàvàs moaned "Don't tell me you're some sort of fucking inquisitor are you?"

"Utterly alien but you recognise the markings." The Inquisitor's eyes narrowed, his eyes burning with malicious intent.

"Ugh... You are!” Tàvàs groaned with mocking affect “Their kind are the worst aren't they?" Tàvàs directed his rhetorical question to the other figure who, somehow, shrank back even further into the dark: As though the expression he wore, the spasms in his face, his breathing and its pace... something would give away a whisp of false belief. "And they're probably the good guys right? The sworn avengers? The swords of justice that serve the..." Tàvàs gestured as much as the chains around his wrists allowed him.

"We are the sword of the Ecclesiarchy Alien."

"OOOOHHHHH... that's not good.” Tàvàs clicked his tongue “That’s played out! Played out and dull." He continued shaking his head in mock disappointment. "And the ecclesiarchy serves the... Supreme Chosen of God? The Council of the Divine? The Empire?" Tàvàs cocked an eyebrow.

"Administer the first dose." The Inquisitor said, his seething anger at Tàvàs's insolent blasphemy barely under control.

The magnets on Tàvàs's wrists activated, slamming them down onto the tabletop forcing his fingers flat, injectors pierced his fingertips and delivered their agonizing poison.

"Good choice." Tàvàs nodded appreciatively "See if you were just going for pure effect you'd choose something that goes straight into the nervous, limbic, or circulatory  system but this... this gives me time to stew and time to think of all the naughty naughty things I've done to your Sainted Pure Holy Divine Empire... Woe is me..." Tàvàs sobbed, putting on a convincing display of contrition, were it not for the laughter he was trying to suppress "Whatever shall I do? Please. Mercy… Mercy of the mighty sword of the Supreme Holy Chosen" He laughed, flexed his hands, fingers suddenly free from the injectors. 

"So... let me try this on for size." Tàvàs began, the mirth falling from his voice, being replaced by a heavy boredom "The golden age, the glory days, the whatever the fuck under the reign of whomever the fuck has come and gone and now things are terrible, dark, and scary. Some evil portal has been opened and everything must be sacrificed to the war, everyone must be turned to the war, every principle, value, and greater good must be offered on its altar lest the big guy get angry."

The absolute boredom in Tàvàs tones stunned the Inquisitor into silence. Whatever the man had prepared for, whatever he had learned over his career, dealing with someone who is so utterly bored hadn't been part of it. Spite, venom, hate, wrath, those were all familiar to him. So too were intimidation tactics, begging, tears, every kind of false profession of innocence. But this? Comical indifference. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t natural. It was… curious. 

"There's a church, which you're part of. Your colleague is pants shittingly terrified of you suggesting significant vested absolute power. You only vest absolute power in a tool if you don't have centralised power meaning that this is some kind of multiplanetary reality without proper faster than light travel or significant limitations thereto. How am I doing?" Tàvàs smirked at the Inquisitor's inability to mask his emotions. 

"There are only really a few points left so I'll make it quick." Tàvàs stood, internally savouring the reactions of his impotent wardens as his bindings vanished "You differentiate between aliens suggesting that this Sacred Empire of Starry Bullshit has dealings with them, some of which you like, some of which you don’t, but you grade people... honestly that's a no no for me, especially if done on a wholescale genetic level BUT!" Tàvàs clapped his hands, triggering a small spout of blood from his still raw fingertips, the oxidizing droplets the only colour or smell, other than gray and fear, in the cold cell.

"You grade them allowing for deviance suggesting that there were long periods with no contact, or the use of generation colony ships which were improperly shielded against radiation triggering rampant mutation OR, and this might actually make your reality interesting, there is a thriving market for easily accessible bio-engineering…” His voice lilted upwards. hopefull for a moment before crashing back down “A pity" Tàvàs sighed.

"So then, mutation it is. As for your big bad reason for existence…” Tàvàs paced as he thought his way through reality “Religion always implies Gods. If it was some sort of ancient danger, exterminatory machines, or extra-galactic invasion you'd be military police or something like ‘The Buro” or ‘The Agency’ or ‘Alpha Depot’.” Tàvàs’ gestures became wilder and more flamboyant, “Something secular but nondescript.” 

“Also, small aside... you tased me. Unpleasant.” Tàvàs wagged his finger before returning to his rant “Religion and paranoia means gods. Dark gods with massive powers to shapeshift, steal things, and generally fuck around. How'd I do?" Tàvàs smiled, properly, and fell back into his hard chair. Wincing at the impact which jostled his broken face, he quickly set his nose back into place, much to the shock of his interlocutors.

"Nothing? Seriously?" Tàvàs pouted "Smoke?" He asked taking a pack from his jacket pocket.

"We..." The Inquisitor's brow furrowed "We stripped you?" He finished his phrase

"Yes." Tàvàs nodded "Yes you did." He nodded again "Smart. By the books. But that was now and this jacket is from then.” He grinned, finally starting to have fun.

“From… then?” The guard muttered, stepping forward, before becoming aware of himself and falling back. 

“Before you stripped me."

"Before... Right..." The Inquisitor moved his hand to his hip

"Really? Come on." Tàvàs laughed "I'm obviously just fucking with you. Aren't you the least bit curious why? No?” He rolled his eyes when the Inquisitor’s hand didn’t move from its trajectory towards his holster “Then before you shoot me, how did I do?"

"Do?" The Inquisitor asked perplexed hand pausing above his holster.

"My assessment. I thrive off constructive criticism."

"It was... apt." The Inquisitor conceded, his hand finally coming back to the table. 

"Thank you. Now... smoke? You soldier? The Tobacco of a world that was and the only one that can't ever be?"

"Please." The soldier croaked, his voice, like his mind, breaking under the strain of the most surreal exchange to which he had ever witnessed.

With the practice that came with untold ages of practice Tàvàs flicked a cigarette over the soldier and, as soon as the man put it to his lips, found a moment where the flame was right where it had to be. The wash of heat was welcoming, the din, a battle from a time unknown,was less so. "And you?"

"What are you?" The Inquisitor asked. The question came hard and flat but behind the grim mask Tàvàs could see a kind of curiosity begin to burn.

"I asked first."

"Fine." The Inquisitor spat as the soldier sighed in satisfaction of having something even he could understand.

Tàvàs repeated the process, finding another moment close to when the previous one had been.

"Someone fought a battle here once upon a time." Tàvàs remarked, lighting his own cigarette with a banal lighter.

"Many." The Inquisitor said before settling into a silent calculation "Soldier... bring us Tanu. From the reserve. Two glasses." The soldier sagged, sparing a mournful gaze at his half smoked cigarette. 

“Good Tobacco.” The soldier said, forgetting himself a second time. A serious lapse, forgiven only by the Inquisitor’s focus on Tàvàs. 

The Inquisitor lapsed into silence, the sound of burning tobacco filled the room with a sweet smoke and, more importantly to Tàvàs, another colour even if it was a shade of grey. He could see the Inquisitor’s mind through his unfocused eyes, a small gateway into the mental gymnastics the man was performing to justify his course of action. Evidently the performance received a satisfactory evaluation as the man’s eyes refocused and he began to evaluate Tàvàs once more. But, unlike before, it was the neutral curiosity of one man seeing another for the first time.

"Drink?" The Inquisitor asked, gesturing the thrall to begin pouring before Tàvàs had a chance to speak.

"Thank you." Tàvàs nodded "Is this to sip or to shoot?"

"Both." The Inquisitor cracked a half smile "We have a bottle."  

"I don't know if I'll be around for that long but... I'll give it the old college try. Names?"

"Di'Ryven, Theological Inquisitor. Gene Line 2K, Class A"

"Both very intimate and very shallow." Tàvàs laughed at the impossible juxtaposition "I am Tàvàs, a traveller."

"A traveller..." Inquisitor Di'Ryven echoed

"And one who is very eager to hear which parts of your delightful reality I missed."

"Quite accurate, you missed little. Your failure to account for our souls was a rather remarkable oversight."

"Souls!" Tàvàs smacked his head and drained his glass "I always forget the souls. That's my personal bias though."

"Personal... bias?"

"Eh..." Tàvàs shrugged "So then your souls connect you to these dark gods? And you protect them somehow?"

"Not gods."

"No?"

"Forces of creation."

"Ahhhhh... Eldritch... Horrors?"  Tàvàs ventured

"Extremely."

"And they eat souls?"

"Unknown."

"But they covet them."

"Yes." The Inquisitor nodded "To them we are less than chattel, less than fodder. Toys. Play things..." His face twisted in a mask of pure hatred... 

Tàvàs cocked his head to see the Inquisitor. It wasn’t just a taught hatred. It was too genuine for that. 

A learned hatred then? No, it went far deeper than what can be experienced in a lifetime. 

Ancestral hatred could do it? But no, this was something far more primal than a grudge carried by generations. It was a grudge of generations but that was incidental.  

Genetic hatred? Yes. This was a loathing imprinted by the hand of evolution itself in the very fabric of life… and Tàvàs revelled in its purity. The only pure thing he had seen or felt in this reality.

Tàvàs’ lips twitched in a ghost of a smile, allowing the sensation to fade completely before continuing "So then... Your souls power them but I assume you can keep them pure and power yourselves? This being the function of your ecclesiasty?"

"Yes." The Inquisitor nodded.

"And these forces they can..."

The Inquisitor leaned forward, the fine lines of masterfully rebuilt features visible against the harsh light "They can do whatever they will. The collective will of the living races is all that prevents our fall into darkness. Vigilance, Paranoia, Devotion, Discipline, Faith... Our weapons and our armour."

"And thus the genetic measurements." Tàvàs nodded, sipping at a fresh glass and savouring the earthy, nutty notes.

"Who are you... no." Inquisitor Di'Ryven shook his head, eyes narrowing and pupils dilating "What are you? You're..." He drank to buy himself precious seconds, poured and drank again to buy himself a few more "You're not one of them but you're.... What are you?"

Tàvàs smiled, the moment was approaching, he could feel it like a sunflower the dawn "How do you know I'm not one of them?"

"Too high grade genetics and..." Inquisitor Di'Ryven grimaced "There's a wrongness about them. Genetics be damned." He slammed his glass on the metal table, only the thick bottom prevented the clang from turning into a symphony of shards. No symphony of glass but Tàvàs could feel the cracks in the Inquisitor's impenetrable carapace beginning to form "You aren't right, but you don't have that thing about you. What. Are. You?" He demanded

"I..." Tàvàs vacillated for a moment, leaned forward, swiped his glass from the table, smiled as it shattered leaving a wet stain on the wall, leaned back, and brought back the moment when the glass was still on the table "I am one of the remnants." His expression became a rictus grin, "I am what remains when you break the only rule."

"How? You..." The Inquisitor stuttered, swallowed, and struggled desperately to reconcile his realities, almost blindly groping for his glass and the smouldering remnants of the cigarette the trooper left behind "Rule?" He finally asked weakly.

"Rule." Tàvàs nodded before breaking his rictus revealing an expression of ancient glee "See. I like you Inquisitor. You didn't shoot me and you actually used your fucking brains for more than reciting scripture from memory so!" Tàvàs clapped as he stood "Do you want me to show you?"

The Inquisitor breathed, heavily, slowly, the murky air protesting at his sudden departure from the expected realities "Show me." Di'Ryven said, resolved to the absurdity.

"Good." Tàvàs nodded, reality bled, and the two were standing amidst the charred ruins of some medieval town.

"Where are we?"

"I was hoping you would know." Tàvàs shrugged "All I know is when we are. And when we are is a long time ago. And in a long time from now, this is where your torture chambers will be."

"I…” Di'Ryven, shivered as the realisation washed over him “Time. You can manipulate time."

"Mmmmmm...." Tàvàs bobbed his head side to side "To an extent. Reality has rules, how your souls work. That's a rule. How space is constructed. That's a rule."

"Gravity?" Di'Ryven ventured

"Very good.” Tàvàs chuckled “That's also a rule. But there are limits to those rules." Tàvàs snapped his fingers for effect and reality bled again. It bled away planets, stars, nebulae, galaxies... until the universe, all of them, pooled at their feet.

"What is... What was..." Di'Ryven breathed, falling back on well worn patterns but not his well worn thoughts "This is not a time."

"Correct." Tàvàs nodded

"It's a... place?"

"The last place."

"The last..." Di'Ryven's expression glazed over as he plunged into his own mind, an expedition Tàvàs was more than willing to indulge. "This is where the rules lead!" Di'Ryven shouted "This is it! This is the end! If we go..." He lurched forward and remained in place.

"This is the end." 

“But there has to be more!” Di’Ryven’s expression was still rapturous “There has to be more?! Somewhere all of this leads? Some greater plane?”

“Maybe down there. But not here.” Tàvàs shook his head sadly. "This is the end of all times, places, and things.” He sighed “There is nothing beyond it because beyond there, there are no rules. Only here. Only in this sandbox. You're lucky. You have an enormous sandbox. Worlds, Systems, Galaxies, Universes. A Multiverse."

"Others don't?"

"Nope. Some don't even get a world. Just a continent. Some really unlucky ones even less than that."

"And that's determined by the rules?"

"Yep." Tàvàs nodded

"And there's one rule that you broke that made you..." Di'Ryven gestured vaguely at Tàvàs “This.”

"Not just me, all the remnants of humanity."

"We're Humanity..." The Inquisitor's breath caught in his throat "Did you show me this to say... we'll become you? You're our future? Free from..."

"No." Tàvàs waved away the train of thought "Different humanity. Different rules. It turns out that there's only one rule that you can't break otherwise things get…” Tàvàs’ brow furrowed for a moment, as he tried to find the words “fucky." He finally concluded. 

"Fucky?" Di'Ryven laughed in spite of himself, in spite of standing at the edge of reality itself

"Yep. Turns out you can break every other rule, law, constant, whatever... But when you break time. And I mean really break. Not just defy, distort, rewind, unwind or something like that... break break. Irreparably destroy. Totally, wholly, utterly, and fundamentally annihilate... When you do all of that to Time the rules start to break and things get fucky."

"Hah!" Tàvàs barked a harsh laugh finally allowing himself a sip of bitterness' mire, a flavour he otherwise kept safely locked away "Those of us that survived the..." He searched in vain for a mortal word for what happened an immortal era ago "Storm. We suddenly became unbound. Reality ravelled and unravelled around us... Once we finish this conversation I'm going to shoot myself. I will die. But I can't die. I can't because time inside me is broken. Time around me is broken. The rules that ground reality have come undone and in the moment of my death..." Tàvàs's smile was one of indescribable agony "I will become again."

"That is... But then... You've seen..." Di'Ryven's gazed in awe at the mortal immortal before him.

"Everything." Tàvàs whispered, completing the Inquisitor's thought "I've seen everything. I've seen innumerable dreams play out in uncountably infinite realities. I've seen the highest of highs, the lowest of lows. I've seen realities pure as a lover's desire, and others evil as a murderer's dream. And yet, among all those uncountable infinities I've only seen the countable ones where time still rules."

"That's how you knew..." Di’Ryven began, his mind slowly piecing his shattered reality together again.

"Some things never change. Some rules come together, either because they must or...." Tàvàs cracked a wry grin "I'm starting to lean towards a must but who knows what I'll see next."

"So that's it?"

"That's it."

"When did you decide you weren't going to live a life here?"

"As soon as I breathed the air."

"Part of the rules?"

"Eh... call it a tendency." Tàvàs shrugged “I’ve lived through endless cycles in realities like yours before and it’s uh… not my flavour.”

“Not your flavour?” 

“Nope.” Tàvàs shook his head “I’m not wholly against it. You can’t really be wholly against anything when you have infinite cycles but I dunno. I only recently ended my time in a universe like yours and I’d prefer not to repeat.” 

"So I should shoot you?"

"If you want to spend the rest of your life alone at the edge of reality."

"Could you..." Di'Ryven began to gesture but by the time he had finished they were back in the cell.

"We already did it tomorrow." Tàvàs joked, drawing a chuckle from the Inquisitor “Thoughts?” Tàvàs asked, prompting a weary sigh from the inquisitor.

“Processing. I still will be for days, if I ever really can.” He exhaled heavily “But the knowledge that there’s more. So, so, so much more.” He smiled “That’s something to hope for. Something to reach for. Something I’ll carry with me.” Di’Ryven’s expression became one peace, softening the hard lines of his face, granting yet another glimpse into the man who could have been.

“Good.” Tàvàs smiled in return “It was a gift. I hope you use it to add more colour to…” Tàvàs gestured expansively “All of this.” 

“I’ll…” Di’Ryven’s face hardened again “I’ll do something with it. Hopefully it will be enough.”  

“Good!” Tàvàs clapped his hands together. “Now then. To business if you don’t mind. It’s time for me to die.” 

"I shoot you and then you wake up somewhere else?" Di'Ryven asked, drawing his gun

"Pretty much. I'll pop by the anchor first but yeah, we can't ever stay there for too long."

"Heh..." Di'Ryven laughed, his expression briefly revealing the man that could have been in a different time in another place. 

"Oh?"

"I just realised I have more time than you." And then he fired, the sharp retort punctuating the end of a bizarre conversation. It was a second note of purity and Tàvàs found himself smiling again as the shell tore through his chest. The dichotomy of humanity, the purest hatred, the purest joys… beauty manifest. 

Di'Ryven would have been inclined to write it off as a fever dream if not for the corpse draped over the table in front of him. He smiled when his professional search found the cigarettes and a tiny sliver of an arrow, a memento of a broken time. 

_______________

"Tàvàs... you're back?!" Iyska looked up from his desk in surprise

"Stupid fucking bullshit of a universe. Austere, Spartan, Grim... eugh... Whichever one of our ancestors dreamt it up was a boring nihilistic cunt who didn’t know how to paint a canvas."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Good lore?"

"Eh... it's a sandbox I suppose. Lot of potential. Could probably even have a few dozen of us running around before anyone would notice but..." Tàvàs shrugged

"Not your thing."

"Nope."

"Still have the echo for it? Kyrian's been hanging out for a while and..." Iyska clicked his tongue "He's either gotta get gone or he'll become gone."

"OI! Kyrian! Ask for Inquisitor Di'Ryven" Tàvàs shouted, barely giving the other man a chance to react before the bolt of time struck him in the chest. Pierced by the shard of Time's Arrow he was dragged back into the reality Tàvàs had just left.

"That was a dick move." Iyska observed dryly, attention already drifting back to the book he had brought back from his last sojourn into time and space.

"Eh..." Tàvàs shrugged, dropping into the now empty chair and picking up the papers Kyrian had been reading. If he was lucky, he'd have time to finish them before reality reasserted itself once more.