Chapter 743 - The Spaces in Between

This time, Zeke let everyone know that he expected to be occupied for quite some time.  Perhaps even longer than it took for him to learn how to manipulate the threads of reality.  Their reactions were predictable. 

Pudge took it stoically, trusting that Zeke knew what he was doing.  That it was necessary.  Still, he was obviously disappointed in the choice, though it was almost as if Pudge had expected it all along.  Perhaps he had, which said a lot about Zeke and their relationship. 

By contrast, Talia had cut him off before he even revealed the reasons for his long absence.  The worst was that she didn’t even seem angry.  Just tired of dealing with him.  Had she moved on?  Had she finally discarded her obsessive devotion?  Or was her attitude simply a mask?

Her words said the former, but deep down, Zeke knew that it was the latter.  He could feel as much when he focused on her soul thread.  However, knowing that she was done with him – at least insofar as their relationship was concerned – hit him harder than expected. 

Was that because he would truly miss her?  Or was it more about regretting the loss of a devotee?  In most ways, their relationship was entirely asymmetrical.  Talia cared far about him than he did about her.  Certainly, what Zeke did feel was something approaching – or perhaps even exceeding – the bounds of love.  However, Talia’s feelings toward him had always been outsized. 

And now, he’d fractured that, and through nothing more than sheer absence. 

She might still need him, and deep down in places she didn’t want to acknowledge, but she was self-aware and mentally healthy enough to recognize that she shouldn’t want him.  That left Zeke both disappointed and relieved, the last because he truly did want the best for her.  Even if that meant he wasn’t really in her life, save through diplomatic relations between her domain and the tower.

Those, at least, would always remain.

When Zeke made his intentions clear to the tower’s government, they took it in stride.  They’d managed things well enough without him, and for thousands of years.  They were more than capable of doing it again. 

Not surprising, given that he’d never taken much of a hand in the day-to-day matters within the Crimson Tower.  But a relief nonetheless. 

Eveline did chastise him, though.  She raked him over the coals, pointing out the harsh reality that he’d only been back for a short time.  Now, he was leaving.  She couched her chastisement in real-world issues, like being around to protect his people or guide their development, but in the end, it was all about her personal feelings.

She would miss him.

Sometimes, it was easy to forget that her situation wasn’t so different from his own.  Over the hundreds of years they’d been together – with her living in his mind as a spirit – they’d both grown accustomed to the company.  For Zeke’s part, there were many times when he found himself holding a one-sided conversation within his own thoughts.  Often, it took him an embarrassingly long time to remember that she was no longer there to offer any retorts.

Obviously, she had similar problems, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

Zeke even considered inviting her back into his mind, but it wasn’t long before he discarded that notion.  Where he was going, and with what he had planned, she would never survive.  Fights between gods was no place for a nigh-defenseless mind spirit, and Zeke intended to go much further.  Soon, he would find the Creator himself and fight against the entropic forces of the world outside the Framework. 

She would be obliterated in moments.  Everyone he knew would see the same fate.  Such was the burden of his power.  Loneliness was the only realistic outcome. 

At least this time, everyone had fair warning.  And what’s more, they knew how to reach him – quickly and easily.  The Waymaster had seen to that, helping him establish an embassy accessible within the Ways. 

That was his current location.

The compound was enormous.  At least the size of a small city, with hundreds of extra buildings meant to house staff as well as diplomats.  In addition, it played host to its own gate leading to the tower.  For all that the amorphous blob that was the Waymaster was non-sapient, it had thought of everything. 

Zeke supposed that was what living for eons did for creature, even if that entity had begun life as a single-celled amoeba. 

Whatever the case, Zeke vowed to approach this bout of training with a little more care for his followers.  They deserved better than what he’d given them so far, so he resolved to take at least a few days out of each passing year to address their concerns.  Or at least show his face so that his worshippers didn’t forget who was in charge.

Or who protected them.

With that in mind, he set his mind to learning everything he could about the negative space.  It wasn’t long before he discovered that it was just a different sort of thread, though one he couldn’t perceive.  What he could sense was the effect they had on everything else.  Suddenly, things that hadn’t made sense before became much clearer, and only because he now knew of those negative threads’ existence. 

But simply knowing they were there was only the first step.  The next was to learn how to manipulate them.  Even the Waymaster, as old and experienced as it was, had only managed to dip its proverbial toes into that pool.  And Zeke wanted to dive into the deep end. 

Hopefully, he could learn to swim before he drowned.

Regardless, the Waymaster’s experience had so far proved invaluable.  Zeke leaned on that, and, as had happened during his last training session, the years passed in a blink.  Was his perception of time speeding up?  Would a year one day feel like no more than a second?  That was a real possibility.  What was even more troubling was that, over time, he would grow even more detached from his people. 

It had already begun to happen.  Zeke barely saw them as alive.  Every year, he forced himself to head back to the tower for a couple of days.  Almost like clocking out from work and going home.  But as those years piled up, he saw so many changes that it almost felt like he was watching one of those time lapse videos he’d so enjoyed in his youth – the ones where he could see a flower sprouting in the space of a few moments. 

As he dedicated himself to the task, years became decades, and those, in turn, became centuries.  The tower continued to evolve, growing larger with every passing millennia.  It was a world of its own, with a universe sprouting from within.  Thousands upon thousands of galaxies, each one with its own evolutionary history.  It was almost like he’d grown his own realm. 

That was when it hit him.

Floating cross-legged in the Waymaster’s chamber, he opened his eyes to see the same amorphous blob only a few feet away.  When he spoke, his throat was ragged from disuse.  He asked, “What do you know of the Crimson Tower?”

The Waymaster shivered, and its disembodied voice echoed through the domed room as it answered, “It is one of the Creator’s earliest tools, used to build the Mortal Realm.”

“W-what?”

It trembled.  “I thought you knew its history,” the Waymaster stated.

“All I know is that it was awarded after I escaped my first dungeon,” Zeke said.  “It’s been with me ever since.  I knew it was special, but…”

“Special is an understatement,” it said.  “It is wholly unique.  It is less of an item than an extension of your soul.  That is the only way it could evolve so steadily.  There are plenty of items in this reality that are capable of growth.  Normally, it happens in short spurts, with a clear ceiling.  The Crimson Tower has no ceiling.  It will continue to expand so long as you grow.”

“But why?  How?”

“I do not know how it was built.  The Creator attempted to explain it once, long, long ago,” it answered, the last word tapering off.  It remained silent for a brief moment of contemplation before continuing, “The growth was the easiest part, according to the Creator.  Even you are capable of manipulating the threads to manifest objects.  Even life.  The tower does that on its own.  I am certain that you can ascertain the method, given a little time.

“The true marvel was detaching an entire universe from the tower,” the Waymaster explained.  “That nearly killed the Creator.  He endured – as he always did – and that detached universe became the seed from which the Mortal Realm grew.  He repeated that feat two more times to build the Eternal and Ethereal Realms.”

“Why did he stop there?”

“There was no need for other realms.  In addition, his soul could endure no more.  And finally, he would soon outgrow its necessity,” the Waymaster explained.  “Over the billions of years it took to build the tiers of this reality, he learned to create things without the crutch provided by the tower.  If he so wished, he could spin a new tier into existence with no more than a thought.”

Zeke’s jaw dropped at that thought, at that degree of power.  Once, he might not have found it so impressive.  The Creator was said to be all-powerful, and such a feat should not have been so awe-inspiring.  However, now that Zeke understood the basics of the mechanics involved in such a feat, he could see just how special the Creator must truly be. 

Sure, he had plenty of power, but so did Zeke.  Controlling it was more about skill than sheer might.  And the skill involved in creating a universe from scratch – it was more impressive than anything Zeke could imagine. 

He had just enough experience with the threads of reality to know that it was probably even more remarkable than he thought, too.

But that was just incentive to keep going, to work harder, to learn more.  So, his training continued.  Strangely, despite focusing on the negative threads he couldn’t truly perceive, his ability to manipulate the true threads of reality advanced the most.  Within a couple of centuries, he had made more progress than he had in more than a millennium alone. 

Only after a few more centuries did Zeke come to the seemingly obvious conclusion that they were even more connected than he’d first thought.  Action and reaction.  If he moved the reality threads in one direction, then the negative threads went in another.  Or sometimes, flowed right along with their paired matches.  The trick was figuring out which action prompted which reaction. 

And considering that there were innumerable threads, that was quite a task.  Complicating matters was the obvious issue that he had to filter environmental feedback through a mental formula just to see how those actions affected the negative threads. 

To call it complex would have been a vast understatement, and fully understanding it wouldn’t just be the work of centuries.  Nor millennia.  It was the work of millions of years, and Zeke knew he couldn’t afford to shortchange it. 

So, he worked.

Perhaps if he’d been more intelligent, things might have gone easier.  If he’d had Einstein- or Hawking-level intellect, he would have made shorter work of the process.  However, he also suspected that even those towering minds would have had difficulty understanding the often enigmatic nature of reality.

But as the years passed, he couldn’t help but wonder why he’d been chosen for such a task.  He was no scientist.  Not like Tucker.  Intelligence had never been his strongsuit.  Instead, he was a warrior.  A man who solved most of his problems by hitting them really, really hard.  And when that didn’t work, he hit them even harder. 

If he had a singular talent, it was simple survival.  He’d endured so much over the years, and he’d always kept moving forward.  Each step was usually accompanied by a swing of his hammer. 

A generous assessment would call him uncomplicated.  A more scathing label would say he was a crude meathead without an intellectual bone in his body.

Zeke was more inclined to think of himself in those latter terms.

However, if there was one thing he could do, it was focus on a singular task and continue trudging forward.  If it took him a million years, then so be it.  He knew precisely how to shift his mindset toward that sort of monotony.  He’d done it often enough that it was practically second-nature.

Sometimes, he understood things in a way that astounded even him, but other times, he felt like he was banging his head against a wall.  It didn’t matter.  He pushed on.  He continued to work.  And slowly, hints of true understanding spread through his mind.  It was a good start, but he knew he had a long way to go.