Chapter 742 - Negative

The ball of amorphous goo floating in the center of the room shimmered with mana, divine energy, and something Zeke couldn’t quite discern.  Looking closer, he saw that the threads only made up a portion of the thing’s mass, and there was meaning in the space between.  Mass, even.  It was an oddity for which he had no real explanation, except that he wasn’t nearly as perceptive as he believed himself to be. 

“Is there something between the threads?” he asked without preamble. 

The undulating mass of semi-solid material shimmered, changing between a wide variety of colors.  Then, a single thread shot out, slamming into Zeke’s mind more quickly than he could react. 

And given his power, that meant that it happened all but instantly. 

He severed it immediately.

The mass trembled, but Zeke said, “Don’t do that again.  I’m not here for a fight, but…well, that’s kind of what I do.”

“You have grown,” came a disembodied voice.  A moment later, a door opened, admitting a larger and more impressive drone.  This one had been molded to fully embody a man, complete with sculpted muscles that somehow flexed with every movement, and a face.  Thankfully, the creator had chosen to clad it in a pristine white toga that clashed a little with the silver figure.  When it drew closer, the voice came from its mouth as it said, “I didn’t think anyone else was capable of doing something like that.  I am happy to be proven wrong.”

“You are the Waymaster?” Zeke asked.

So far, he’d met plenty of the entity’s drones, but he’d never considered the possibility that its drones were representative of its true form. 

The silver man gestured toward the blob in the center of the room.  “My real form.  I began life as but a single-celled organism,” he said.  “At some point, I attained sapience.  I don’t know what the catalyst was, but once I reached that stage of development, my growth expanded exponentially.  By the time I ascended, everything on my home planet was part of me.”

“Hive mind?” Zeke asked.

He’d seen a few such colonies, but from his experience, they suffered from a dedication to conformity.  They were too rigid in their thought processes – a reality that was easy to exploit.  It wasn’t so different  from dealing with a cult-like organization such as the Radiant Host.  They adhered too strictly to their dogma, and to the point where it became detrimental to their own survival.

“No hive.  Just me.  I consumed everything, and everything became me,” the Waymaster stated.  “The distinction between the two is likely lost on you, but I trust that you will understand when I say that there is an enormous gap between them.”

“Fair enough,” Zeke said.  “What happened after that?”

“I continued to grow,” the Waymaster answered.  “At that point, there was little distinction between the realms.  The Creator had yet to ascend to the endpoint.  There was no Framework.  No structure.  Just a bundle of universes bound together and waiting to be consumed.”

The drone let out a sigh, and somehow, the undulating mass of gelatinous material slumped.  “That is how I approached it,” it admitted through the drone.  “I knew nothing but consumption and so, I consumed.  Planet after planet until I became the size of an entire universe.

“I don’t know how long it lasted.  Eons, certainly.  At some point, I began to see the threads,” the Waymaster explained.  “They fascinated me because when I saw them, I could at last see deeper than mere consumption.  I grew.  I learned.  I manipulated.  And then, the adversary attacked.”

“What exactly is it?  What does it look like?” Zeke asked.  He’d seen representations of it, and he was certain he’d asked the question before.  But he’d never gotten a satisfactory answer.

“That is a difficult question to answer until you can see between the threads.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.  You have begun to see it.  The negative space.  It is the opposite of everything you now perceive.  Where there are threads, there is a corresponding emptiness.  Such is simply the way of all reality,” the Waymaster continued.  “I know what you want to ask.”

“Do you?”

“Of course, because I asked the same questions, once.”

“Then what are the answers?”

“The threads are reality, but they are not all-encompassing.  Like me, they were meant to spread – not for consumption, but by their very nature.  And the negative space follows the same imperative,” the drone went on.  “They are at constant war.  That is the nature of our adversary.  The enemy itself is not the issue.  They can die.  They can be destroyed.  But the negative space will always spread.  For time immeasurable, so has it been.  So it shall always be.  It is not a battle between entities, but between two warring aspects of reality.”

“That isn’t true.  I’ve felt them.  I’ve seen them.”

“Oh, the negative space has its champions, just as the threads have us.  They scheme, and they plot, normally in ways we can’t even begin to understand,” the Waymaster admitted through the drone.  “But again – they are not the true problem.  They are merely an obstacle.  If they fall, more will rise in their place.  Ever has this been known, even from the very beginning of the conflict.”

“How do we fight it?” Zeke asked, preferring to look at the drone than at the floating and undulating mass of goo.  Somehow, that made things easier.

“The Framework was the first attempt.”

“How does it work, though?”

“Just like negative space, the threads wish to spread as well.  Often, they do this through the propagation of life.  Or through the creation that follows from that.  It is the root of all inspiration, the driving force behind every organism’s need to spread,” the Waymaster explained.

Zeke could wrap his head around that much, at least.  He’d never been a scientist, but he’d paid at least nominal attention during his high school biology classes.  And since then, he’d experienced enough of the natural world to have recognized the pattern.  Every creature strove to expand its influence, either through growth or by breeding.  Normally, that resulted in a constant and natural war between various species. 

Scientists referred to the resultant arms race as evolution.  Through natural selection, each species developed counters to their natural enemies.  The ones that failed to adapt quickly enough were doomed to extinction. 

But one and all, every single organism’s driving imperative was to spread its influence.  The threads were like that.

Zeke could see it now.

“And the negative space is the counter,” he guessed. 

“In a way.  Threads often fight against one another, as well,” the Waymaster said.  “But that is a natural part of existence.  The negative space wishes to stop that spread, to push it back until there is nothing left.”

“It has a will of its own?”

“No.  Forgive my anthropomorphizing.  It is a constant part of the world,” it said.  Then, after a moment, the Waymaster amended, “Think of it as something akin to your laws of physics.  They do not have minds.  They can only act according to their nature.  Or as they are guided.”

“I see,” Zeke said.

“Now you want to know how we are meant to counter it.”

Zeke nodded.  “The Framework is failing, isn’t it?” he asked.

“It was only ever meant to slow the spread of the negative space,” the Waymaster said. “Ironically, that space exists regardless of what any of us wish.  Just as the threads must exist outside the Framework.”

“Then what –”

“Just as the threads are meant to propagate life, the negative space is meant to consume it.  In a perfect reality, they exist in perfect harmony.  We have something like that within the bounds of the Framework,” the Waymaster stated.  “It is more complicated than that, though…”

“How so?”

“Our threads are out of control.  They are far more prolific than the negative space.  The only reason our reality has not imploded is because the Creator funneled excess threads into the Framework itself.  It truly was an elegant solution.  A cage.  A siphon.  A means of empowering those who may take up the fight themselves,” the Waymaster said.  “I wish I could take credit for it, but my part in its creation was a small thing.  Imprinting my nature on the Framework was…necessary, but the bulk of the work fell on the Creator’s shoulders.

“I suppose that is why he is the Creator, and I am nothing but a Waymaster.”

“You are more than a Greater God.”

“More and less.  If you truly wish to know my nature, it is this – I am a powerful slave.  A battery.  A willing sacrifice for the good of all.  My nature is to spread.  And so, I do, only within the confines of the Framework,” it said.  “I am the engine of our reality.  Without me, none of it exists.”

“What happens when you die?”

“The negative space wins.”

Zeke frowned.  If he understood it correctly – and he thought he did – the Framework was nothing more than a prison.  An enormous enclosure meant to keep everyone safe from non-existence, but also a limiter on their reality’s potential.  It kept them safe but confined, and in a very real way that extended to both physical and metaphysical spaces. 

“What kept the negative space at bay before the Framework existed?”

“Nothing.”

“Why didn’t it take over back then?” Zeke asked.

“I…I do not understand the question.”

“You said that reality is meant to exist in a balance, right?  Positive and negative space.  Threads and…whatever it is that I can’t really see.”

“That is correct,” said the Waymaster.

“In their natural state, neither is more powerful than the other.  They coexist in constant conflict.  They keep one another in check.”

“They do.”

“Then what changed?  Why was the Framework even necessary?  Why did the threads need protecting?  Why would our reality need to be confined to a cage?” he asked.

“I…because…I do not…know.”

“Is that because you never thought to ask the questions?  Or are you incapable of thinking in such a way?” Zeke asked.

Silence was the answer.  The issue was that, despite its incredible age and monumental power, the Waymaster was still the same amoeba it had always been.  At the core, it was incapable of true consideration.  It never created anything new.  It just acted according to its nature.

It was not sapient at all.

Sentient, certainly.  Powerful, sure.  But even after eons of development, it had never crossed that threshold.  Zeke was certain of it.  However, the true question was the one that followed that realization.  Had the Waymaster simply found its limit?  Or had it been artificially blocked?  Was it kept in its current state because it was more useful that way? 

There was only one entity in their entire reality capable of doing such a thing. 

“Where exactly is the Creator?” Zeke asked. 

“The end of all things.”

“That sounds more like a time than a place.”

“It is both.  A confluence of the physical, metaphysical, and temporal.  There, the Creator wages war against the adversary, keeping our reality from being overwhelmed by negative space.”

Zeke shook his head as he began to consider the fact that nothing he took for granted was truly as it seemed.  Not only had the greater gods proven to be nothing more than powerful people who’d never truly stopped their progression, but even beings like the Creator and the Waymaster were frustratingly enigmatic. 

And more than anything, Zeke recognized that his reality was very different from how he’d pictured it.  He needed to find out more, but as much as he wanted to question the Waymaster, he didn’t think there was anything more to say on that subject.

However, there was one way the creature could offer assistance.

“You can sense negative space, can’t you?” Zeke asked.  “Manipulate it, after a fashion.”

“I can.”

“Can you teach  me?” he asked.

“I…I should not.”

“But you will.  Because you know it’s all falling apart.  The Framework is unraveling.  Our cage will fall.  When it does, I need to be there to defend us from the coming calamity.  To do that, I need to know as much as I can about negative space.  You can help me with that.”

“I…I will.”

“Good.  Let’s get started, then,” Zeke said, thankful he hadn’t need to resort to threats.  The idea behind it wasn’t a bad one.  The Waymaster certainly wanted to continue existing.  That was its driving imperative.  But Zeke knew well enough that he could never destroy the engine that fueled their isolated reality.  Not until he was certain he was ready for whatever came after.  “What do I call you?  I know Waymaster isn’t your real name.”

“I do not have a name.  The title by which you know me was given to me by the Creator.”

“Then I guess if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.  Now, tell me everything else you know about negative space.”