The Emperor of All Things - By Paul Witcover Page 0,163
the hunter were some powerful talisman, would she entrust it to me, rather than take it with her? The answer must be that it is too dangerous for them to employ, or even to possess. Thus I deduce that it is a weapon of awesome destructive power. And what is it that these creatures seem most to fear … and most to desire? Why, time, of course. The watch, then, must be a kind of bomb, Mr Quare. A time bomb, if you will. Now, let us consider what the effects of such a bomb might be, were it ever to be triggered.’
‘But it has been triggered,’ Quare interjected. ‘In Master Magnus’s study, when it killed his cats in the blink of an eye. And again, when it took Magnus’s life, and somehow spared my own.’
Longinus nodded. ‘Unquestionably, the watch – how shall I put it? – intervened at those moments. I say intervened because it seems obvious to me that the hunter, like other, similar artefacts attributed to Wachter – and for all I know, they were in fact crafted by him, but, if so, at Doppler’s direction – at any rate, the hunter, too, is in some sense alive. Aware. It can choose how and when to act. Perhaps it can even decide the moment of its own detonation. But neither of the instances you have mentioned rises to that level. The proof of it is that the watch still exists … as do we, and everything around us. The world goes on, Mr Quare. Time passes as it always has. But in those effects, can we not see, in miniature, clues to the ultimate purpose and greater effect of the bomb? For what else could be the purpose of such an infernal device but the obliteration of every living thing in a sudden and catastrophic release of time? And yet that cannot be all, for it did, as you point out, spare your life. Therefore that, too, must be part of its design. The hunter is both a destroyer and a preserver of life. But which life will it destroy? And which preserve? I find it unlikely in the extreme that Doppler, whose will is supreme in a place where that is the measure of ultimate power, would create, or cause to be created, a device capable of causing his own death. No, it is far more likely, is it not, that he would instead create a weapon to cow his enemies – his allies, too, no doubt – and maintain his own pre-eminence. That, if my suppositions are correct, is the true purpose of the hunter. To destroy all life – not just mortal life, but immortal, too, for why else would Corinna and the others so fear it? – while preserving Doppler’s life. To return every living thing – save himself – to the primordial state from which it was born. Perhaps, after such an apocalypse, he might, as the sole survivor, begin again, crafting new worlds, new lives, out of the malleable stuff of the Otherwhere.’
‘You speak of him as if he were a god.’
‘What better word is there to describe him, or any of them? There was something that Corinna said to me as we were fleeing – a remark I little noted at the time but have had years to reflect upon. I confess it is behind all that I have told you.’
‘What remark?’
‘I referred to Corinna and her kind as fallen angels. She was quick to correct me, Mr Quare. “Not fallen,” she said. “Risen, rather.” She called it their crime, their original sin. Imagine, Mr Quare, that spontaneously, as it were, out of the primal stuff of the Otherwhere, creatures arose that possessed self-awareness, intelligence, and, most of all, will – that is, the ability to shape the Otherwhere to their own purposes. Now imagine that after untold eons of existence, in which each of these creatures was effectively equal to the rest, one of them, filled with ambition and desiring to rule over the others, to set himself above them and impose his will upon them, created something never before seen or even imagined: time. Thus, I believe, was our world brought into being, and every living thing in it, ourselves included. We exist to serve as receptacles for time.’
‘But what advantage would that give to Doppler?’
‘Why, the same advantage that accrues to any man in control of a substance prized or, indeed, required by others. Do you not